


Fate Does Not Bend to Hope

by slamncram (GettheSalt)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Brother-Sister Relationships, Dimension Travel, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Limbo, Loki (Marvel) Dies, M/M, Or does he, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Thorki - Freeform, Thorki Big Bang 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-08 17:44:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16433972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/slamncram
Summary: Loki died. Thor knows this. He watched it happen, he felt the despair when he laid his head on Loki's chest and resolved to die with him. The problem is, he didn't, and he can't shake the feeling that something is haunting him, following his every step, trying to get something from him.From the other side of the veil, it's a problem Loki's having, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, my big bang fic! I want to thank both of my artists, [eepz](http://eepz.tumblr.com) and [andlatitude](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com), for all of their hard work in creating pieces for this story. I have been blown away and floored by what they created and I will never have the words to thank them enough for this.  
> And additional thank you to Steph, ([andlatitude](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com)), my supportive better half, as without her cheerleading, listening ear, and betaing eye, I never would have finished.  
> Thank you, as well, to the mods, without whom this entire event wouldn't have existed!  
> I hope you all enjoy reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it and _please_ give [eepz](http://eepz.tumblr.com) and [andlatitude](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com) major love for their art, which I will treasure _forever_.
> 
>  
> 
> [Eepz Art Post](http://eepz.tumblr.com/post/179599591393/here-is-one-of-my-art-pieces-for-the)  
> [Andlatitude's Art Post](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com/post/179599206064/heres-my-art-for-slamncram-s-thorki-big)

“You’re going to die soon, God of Mischief.”

When Hela had spoken those words, Loki had laughed. He’d laughed, because they were in the middle of battle, and she was under a particularly heavy amount of stress, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t gotten a lot of trash-talk on the battlefield before. It was just part of the whole thrill of it. And that’s what you were supposed to do; laugh, be cocky, and continue to fight your hardest to win the day. That was just what was expected when you were the brother of the God of Thunder. Really, it could be argued that it was the sort of thing expected when you were also the once _lover_ of the God of Thunder, but that wasn’t a widely enough known thing to warrant it weighing in on anyone’s perception. That, and, considering Thor had thought him _dead_ for a good chunk of the last seven years, minus the couple when he was acting out on behalf of a Mad Titan, it just really didn’t seem appropriate to tack that on.

Either way, when Hela had told him he was going to die soon, the important takeaway had been that Loki had laughed, echoed Thor’s long ago statement that he had no plans to die that day, and continued on in the battle. He’d defended the bridge and protected the people, and he’d been there at Thor’s side to be given the most dire task.

Hela couldn’t have been more wrong. Loki didn’t die that day, nor had he died in any of the days since, even if the first night he’d spent once again in Thor’s bed with him it had all felt so good he’d thought he’d died and gone to Valhalla.

No, Loki had lived. Thor had lived. Heimdall and Brunnhilde, Banner, and their people, they had all lived, and Hela was the one who had been defeated. For the first time in what felt like eons, he and Thor were coming back to each other, Thor wearing the mantle of King, and Loki slowly warming to the idea that he could take the title of King-Consort. They had a heading, between the two of them they were making plans for the way Asgard would exist going forward, and their people were safe.

It was all too good to last.

Standing in the destroyed ruins of the sanctuary that had been the _Statesman_ , watching while Thor failed, while the Hulk failed, while Heimdall failed, Loki had heard Hela’s voice in the back of his mind. He’d heard her smooth, mocking tones as she’d said those words.

 _You’re going to die soon, God of Mischief_.

And he did.

He did it for Thor.

 

 

 

Everything up until that moment had felt like a lead-up, for Thor. Somewhere between waiting for the final goodnight from Brunnhilde, eager to lay Loki out in bed, and seeing the shadow of Thanos’ ship over the _Statesman_ , he’d begun to feel almost like this was some kind of false reality.

When he’d been staying on Earth, Darcy Lewis had explained the concept to him, while showing him movie after movie, on nights when he and Jane simply couldn’t slip away. In hindsight, those nights were part of the only reason his relationship with her had lasted so long; the spark had gone out not long after Malekith’s defeat, but they were both too stubborn to let go so soon. Darcy’s movie nights had been a good excuse to stay in, stay home, and _not_ discuss the breakdown of whatever they’d _thought_ was between them.

That was what all of this had begun to feel like. There was nothing he could think that he’d done, no power who he had so wronged, save for his sister, and the Grandmaster, but neither of them could have done this. Why, then, was all of this happening? It had been one thing when Odin had passed over and gone to Valhalla. That had cut him, deeply, but there was a part of him that had known that Odin had been old. Centuries old, and ready to be at peace and rest in the halls of Valhalla. It was everything that had come after that had seemed like some power laughing, trying to see how much the God of Thunder could take before he broke.

The joke was on them. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

He had no family left. Half his people may have survived the escape he’d ordered Brunnhilde to lead but there was no definite answer. His friends were all dead. His home had been destroyed, and the universe was being flung into peril that he had, thus far, failed to stop, and may never be able to stop, because the rings of Nidavellir seemed determined to defy his desperate wish.

Thor wouldn’t break until the universe, the latest thing he had to save, was out of harm’s way, and even then, he might have to hold on a _bit_ longer, just to make sure nothing else came his way.

That, or he would go to Valhalla, and be with the family and friends he missed so deeply he had to force himself to be numb.

Knowing that it could all go that way made it so much easier to accept that he would need to be the one to hold the eye open so the forge could come alive again. Taking the full force of a star didn’t seem quite so daunting when it could only go one of two ways; either it worked, and he had his Thanos-killing weapon, and could take the Titan down, or it didn’t, and he could take relief in Valhalla. It was madness, but he had accepted, when he’d woken up on the Guardians’ ship, that he’d gone a little mad. This was all just part of it.

Of course, he hadn’t factored in how much it was going to _hurt_. Thor had taken a lot, over the years. He was a battle-hardened warrior, a master strategist. He’d come back from battles covered in blood and been sore for days after, taking to soaking in tubs full of scalding water more often than he could be seen.

Fondly, he remembered those times as ones when Loki would sink into the water with him, complaining at first about the sting of it, about how it was so hot he barely felt like he could breathe, before he was close to Thor, lips against his ear murmuring things that made Thor feel, with the way Loki’s hand was touching him, like _he_ could barely breathe.

The memory of it lessened the pain of the star’s blast, but only for a few seconds. The pain he’d felt when he’d needed those baths was nothing compared to this, and, for the first time since the _Statesman_ had exploded around him, Thor thought he just might die. The power of it, the heat, the pain, the sensation of it ripping into him and around him, all of it was combining and making it hard for Thor to keep up his strength, to defy whatever power wanted him to fail. It was making it hard for him to fight the black spots at the edge of his consciousness.

And eventually, it won.

There was no slow progression of it. It didn’t come over him gently, and Thor had known there was no reason to expect that kind of thing to be the case. Death wasn’t gentle; after all, Hela had been the goddess of it. One second, he was fighting with everything he had, hoping that Rocket, Groot and Eitri were nearly finished creating Stormbreaker. The next, he didn’t know. Everything was black, and then it was white, and then there was...

“Loki?”

His brother’s face was smooth, clean. There was no blood, no bruising around his eyes where the vessels had popped, no blue tinge to his lips. His neck was covered, though, and over the edge of a high, golden-edged collar, Thor could see the outline of bruising, deep, purple and angry. Without thinking, Thor made to reach up to pull back that collar, and see the damage, only to realize he was frozen, as he was. He couldn’t move, and, distantly, he could hear yelling. Someone saying his name. It was distracting, taking his attention away from--

“Yes, Thor. Yes, I’m here.”

Those words, again, but this time, so much less true. If this was Valhalla, Thor knew he wouldn’t be hearing the distant voices of his new companions. He would be able to raise his arms, to sit up, to pull Loki close to his chest, hug him and kiss him and see not a single bruise on his body that his own fingers hadn’t put there in a moment of passion and pleasure.

This wasn’t Valhalla. This was some horrible in-between place, and Thor was being tormented by his own mind, conjuring images of Loki while his body was dying, slowly but surely.

“No, you idiot.”

Well.

That didn’t quite line up with the idea of what was happening here that Thor had been subscribing to. He wasn’t sure if his eyebrows were truly furrowing, if his mouth was actually moving, but he asked, nonetheless. “Where are _we_ , then, if we are _here_?”

Loki shrugged, shifting closer. Thor couldn’t see what he was wearing, exactly, but it wasn’t what he’d died in. The fabric looked too soft and light for that, and Loki had died in leather. “I can’t say for certain. But it’s not Valhalla, and you’re not dying. Not while I still have a say.”

Thor couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

“A say? Loki, you don’t even have a _body_ , let alone a say in whether or not I live or I die. You’re--” Thor stopped, swallowing around the lump that had formed in his throat, stubborn and unwilling to let him speak the words. “Gone. You died. Thanos... killed you, in front of me.”

Loki didn’t argue, his hand resting first on Thor’s stomach, then his chest, before he was moving forward, onto his knees, his hands cupping Thor’s face. They felt cool, gentle, all too real for this to be a hallucination. Was the next part of this false reality he’d been flung into going to end with him being tormented by the ghost of his dead brother?

Though Thor _knew_ he hadn’t spoken, he could tell Loki knew what he was thinking by the set of his mouth, the frown familiar enough that it ached to see.

“And who are you to have _ever_ allowed something like that to come between you and what you perceive as your victory, hm?” Loki asked. “This isn’t some false reality, but I need you to listen to me. You cannot give up. Not yet. Our people, what’s left of them? They need you. Your friends need you. I need you.”

Tipping forward, Loki pressed his lips to Thor’s forehead.

“I made a pact with her. Latest in a long line of terrible ideas, I’m sure, but I’m not ready for it all to end. Not when we just found each other again.” The words were a whisper, but Thor heard them clearly. He could feel them vibrating in his bones. He could feel his body, again, could sense it coming back to him, but with every second that he gained his body back, he could feel Loki’s touch fading. He could feel the lightning crackling inside him, but he couldn’t see Loki anymore, save for his cunning green eyes.

“Go. Make him pay for what he’s done. Save the universe. And then find a way to talk to Hela. She can...”

Whatever it was Hela could do, Thor didn’t hear.

But he could feel the smooth, strong handle of his new axe in his hand, the lightning that was dancing over his skin, and Nidavellir shaking with the sound of thunder.

Thor would find out what Hela could do, what pact Loki might have made. His siblings, it seemed, still lived in some form.

Once he dealt with Thanos, Thor would tend to them.


	2. Chapter 2

Dying, for real this time, hadn’t gone the way Loki had hoped. That had to be expected, considering whose hand he’d been dying at. There had been no way to do it gracefully, to die in Thor’s arms like he’d pretended to all those years ago. This time, like the last, he died for Thor, but it was real, and it was ugly, and brutal, but he wouldn’t have changed it, if it meant Thor was hurt, or, worse, Thor took his place.

Loki was a piece in the game, but Thor was a major player. That had always been the way of things, and only recently had Loki been able to understand that, himself. His brother was good and selfless in a way that few others could match. If only one of them could go on, Loki would do everything in his power to make sure that it would be Thor. Tied to his fear and revulsion of Thanos, something in Thor had inspired Loki to care about the fate of the universe. If it was to be saved, Thor needed to live. For that, Loki had to die.

Still, he would have been happy for it to be quicker. Not so quick that he didn’t get his final jab in, but quicker.

“I hate to admit it, but I have a certain amount of respect for you.”

Those had been the first words Loki had heard.

He hadn’t opened his eyes yet. When Thanos had dropped him, he’d known he wasn’t quite dead, yet. That was the cruelty of his murder; it was painful, and it was slow, and he could do nothing to comfort Thor, or urge him to escape, while Thor laid there, and sobbed, and said his name in such broken tones Loki wished he could go back and leave the Tesseract where he’d found it, just to spare Thor _this_. To spare their people _this_.

It was that guilt – a rare thing, for him – paired with the horror of dying, that had urged him to stay still, to keep his eyes closed, to revel in whatever this weightless, painless sensation was for a little longer. He’d blacked out, he knew that, and come back feeling warm and unlike he’d felt when he’d heard the last sounds of the ship exploding around them. There was a part of him that wondered if he’d done it, and made it to Valhalla, despite everything he’d done, all the blood on his hands.

Hearing her voice, however, had urged him to open his eyes, and accept that his worst fears about his afterlife were true. If he had gone to Hel, there would be no escape for him. Not even the Gods could cross the river Gjoll and find their way to Valhalla.

It had seemed almost cruel, that he would be denied that. He had died in battle, had he not? The fighting had ceased, in a way, but the battle was not over. Still, there was nothing to be done for it, not now. Loki did not know if Thor had lived or died, but had he perished with the ship, because he’d been a fool and refused to leave, Loki was certain he would be in Valhalla, now. The two of them were separated. For eternity.

There was nothing else he could do but open his eyes, and search out the owner of that voice.

Not that Hela was the first thing he noticed. The first thing he noticed was that this was unlikely to be Valhalla, but it certainly wasn’t Hel. Wherever he was, it was lit up by the light of a million stars, nebulas spinning in the distance. It should have been cold, he knew, but he felt nothing of the sort. For a moment, he feared that was because of his Jötunn heritage, but even that wouldn’t have sustained him forever. He was a God, and a giant’s child, but, if this was the expanse of space, as it seemed to be, he couldn’t fight against it for long.

“Love what you’ve done with the place.” Loki muttered, shifting and finding that even if it felt like they were floating through space, he’d been settled – or settled out of pure luck – on a slab of polished wood, whose ragged edges made something twist in his belly. There was no knowing where it had come from, for certain, but when he looked over his shoulder, into the starlit darkness, he saw more debris, and had his suspicions confirmed. “Is this my own personal Hel, then? My, you liked me more than I thought.”

Turning back, Loki finally gave Hela the attention she’d clearly been waiting for. Despite having been destroyed with Asgard, she looked just fine. Her clothing was more or less intact, and her long dark hair was pushed back over her shoulders. No helmet, and no weapons, but she still cast an imposing figure, considering she’d propped herself on the remnants of one of the ship’s many thick glass windows.

All this shrapnel, the debris of a ship meant to be salvation, but where were the bodies?

Loki didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want to see their people floating through space, bloated, freezing, dead. But they should be here, should they not?

“I would have relished the opportunity to build you a personal Hel, Loki. After everything you and Thor did to me? I feel it would have been the _least_ I owed you.” Hela shrugged, and nodded her head in a gesture he took to indicate the vastness around them. “But this, in its true form, would have been a personal Hel enough, and I don’t know that it would have made you very open to chatting with me. You’re a finicky little thing, aren’t you?”

Her tone was condescending, and Loki hadn’t expected anything else, but, still, it grated on his nerves.

Hela had been a secret for every one of their years. Odin had been so very, very good at keeping them, and, though Loki was hesitant to place any of the blame at Frigga’s feet, she had done what she could to protect those secrets, and, thereby, protect himself and Thor.

Because of those secrets, however, so many things had unravelled. With Odin now dead, were all of his deepest secrets revealed? Or was another surprise sibling or assassin waiting in the wings?

Either way, Hela was a reality they’d had to face and, no matter if she had been destroyed with Asgard, she was here, now. It was that, or Loki was having a particularly cruel and coherent prior-death experience, but he sincerely doubted that was the truth.

“There are bodies here, aren’t there?”

No matter what she’d done on Asgard, or her flippant tone when she’d spoken a moment ago, Loki could have sworn he saw a moment of grief in her eyes. “Yes. Everyone who was slaughtered on the ship. I hated that thing. I hated the two of you, the watcher, that Valkyrie, the green oaf. All I wanted was to be a queen, and every one of you defied me at every turn.” Focusing on Loki’s face, again, her thin mouth turned up at the corners in a smile that was equal parts appraising and rueful. “Still, the people of Asgard did not deserve to die at the hands of someone with the goals of that monster.”

“The people of Asgard – I beg your pardon?” Loki couldn’t help the incredulous laugh he let out, moving on the wood slab so he was less prone, sitting with his legs partly crossed, one of them bent so he could rest his arm on it while he leaned forward towards her. “ _You_ slaughtered the people of Asgard yourself in your quest for--”

“-- I know.”

Loki stopped, licking his lips and taking a breath. “So, then _this_ is my Hel? I will have to argue with you for eternity about how what _you_ did was wrong? That is creative, given everything in my past.”

Hela’s smile turned mocking, and she shook her head. “I did wrong. I was bloodthirsty, and hungry to conquer the realms, and I cut down anyone who stood in my way, I won’t deny that. Odin stole my conquest from me millenia ago, and it only seemed right that I pick up where I’d left off. Those goals are now, regrettably, out of my grasp. The destruction of Asgard put a damper on my powers, and what Surtur did...”

Loki shouldn’t feel kinship with her, and he didn’t think he truly did, but there was no way to deny that her end would have been a violent and painful one. Asgard had exploded, disappeared in a blaze of fire, and she had been at the centre of it, pitted against the fire giant. He didn’t pity her, but he understood how, especially for the Goddess of Death, it could have been a jarring experience.

“But you’re here now.”

No pity.

“Yes.” Hela answered, her voice more of a bark, snapping off any glee he’d felt at shrugging off her pain. “And so are you, because I held you back from Hel. And Valhalla.”

For the first time since he’d come to, Loki felt true anger. It ripped through him, pulling his lips back in a snarl, coiling his muscles and shooting him towards Hela in a fit of rage. She’d expected it, and of course she had, and moved out of his way, wrapping her fingers in the torn edges of his cape and pulling him back. He slammed back onto the wood and slid, rolling onto his front and making a mad grab for the edge of it, slowing himself, his heart hammering in his chest.

_That_ had to be an illusion, a memory of so many centuries having a body, pulled up by the fear of falling into space and through another wormhole.

“Settle down. I have a proposition for you, God of Mischief.”

Pulling himself forward, Loki shot a glare towards Hela, hating her. The way she was smiling, her ease of speaking, the simple way she sat there while she mocked him and tried to entice him into playing her game. She had held him back from Hel, but she hadn’t let him move on to Valhalla, either. He was stuck, here, wherever _here_ was, because she needed him.

“You may have hated Odin,” he said, settling into a position on the slab that afforded him quick movement, should he need it, “but you’ve mastered taking me hostage for your own ends, so at least he managed to teach you _some_ useful tricks.”

“I could let you fall into Hel right here and now, Loki. Don’t test me.”

“I know we never _truly_ spent family bonding time together, but testing people is what I’m particularly skilled at.”

Abruptly, the scene around them disappeared, and Loki squinted, reaching up to cover his eyes and save them from the assault of bright white light that had suddenly hit him. Hela’s fingers shot into his field of vision, and in the next second he was being hauled to his feet, disoriented, with her face uncomfortably close to his.

“Do you want to see Thor again?”

The blunt nature of her question took Loki by surprise. It twisted together with the new environment she’d pulled him into, and where her hand was below his throat, and made him feel all at once adrift and nauseous. Too late, he realized his lips were moving.

“More than anything.”

The cruel smile had found its way back to Hela’s face, and she stepped back a pace, her fingers letting go of the leather at Loki’s neck, and smoothing both palms over his ruined shoulder pads. “I know. It’s so fascinating what you can learn in Limbo. You two have a particularly close relationship, even for siblings. Especially for an Aesir and a Jötunn.”

Loki would have liked to argue, but he knew when to keep his mouth shut. Hela was giving more, now, than she had in any previous moment, and he needed to let her spill it all.

“I have a proposition for you, as I said. You want to see Thor again. You _both_ want that Titan dealt with, whatever it is that entails. And I want to rule the realm I have finally been properly given.” Hela’s eyes were cunning, the tilt of her smile going from cruel to proud in an instant. “You did me a favour, killing me on Asgard. Rather than being trapped in a dimension made for me, I finally get to rule Hel as should always have been. I can be a queen, and as Goddess of Death, I will _never_ be stopped from conquering my subjects. Unless he is given leave to do what he intends.”

Hela stepped away from Loki, and the brightness of whatever pocket of the universe they’d stepped into dimmed enough that he couldn’t feel the pinpoints of pain it caused in his brain. “You know his goals, do you not? Half the universe, gone away, preserving resources.” She clicked her tongue. “Idiotic. He’s a murderer masquerading as a saviour. But if he does it the way he intends, he’ll be stealing my realm from me. Those who die by him using the Infinity Stones will not go to Hel. They won’t even pass to Limbo, like I’ve done to you. I will only get the scraps, and be robbed of souls that would have eventually entered my kingdom.”

Loki had known that Hel didn’t line up with the popular Midgardian ideal. It was for those who died outside of battle, and while there were levels within it where punishment was doled out, it was simply a continuation of life. For Hela, ruling over something like that, and having a nigh constant influx of subjects, would be sustaining. She would be seen as the Goddess she’d always been styled, and would have her realm to rule.

“What happens if Thanos gets his way?”

Hela held up a finger, turning back his way. Her smile spoke of schemes, now, and though Loki knew better than to ally with her, or trust her, he could feel something in him pulling to that.

“Nothing good, for any of us. In exchange for your resurrection, and my help, all I am asking is that you make sure Thor completes his mission.”

Loki frowned, in spite of the surge of joy he felt in his chest. No matter what this mission was, the idea that Thor had one, and that she was speaking of Loki’s resurrection to reunite them, meant that he’d lived. “Mission?”

“Oh, right. You don’t know. Clean yourself up, you’re a mess. Then we’ll go check in on our brother. Seems he’s made some new friends.”

 

 

 

Loki had been making a lot of allegiances, lately, though he hadn’t intended to be making a new one any time soon, when he’d boarded the Statesman. The only intent he’d had at that point had been to return to an allegiance he’d held for most of his long life, casting aside most others. Allegiance to Thor, to their people. It had felt like coming home, in many ways, but he should have known; those things, at least in the years since Thor’s failed Coronation, were never truly meant to last.

The most he could have hoped for was a respite, like the one he’d had while hiding in their father’s form.

Even so, he never would have expected things to have gone the way they had. Everything had been set for the Asgardians, and they were still, really, licking their wounds. To have come out of the destruction of their home planet, simply to have Thanos come down on them like a reckoning was unfair, it was out of proportion for the worst he could have imagined.

And now, he was in another situation he couldn’t have imagined.

Allying with Hela. Hela, who was, technically, dead now, or, Loki supposed, it was more like half-dead. Hela, who had been ready to kill him, and Thor, and their people, so long as it got her what she wanted. Hela, who had been hungry for a conquest over the realms, and now, instead, was happy simply to deal with the threat Thanos posed to the realm she had complete and total control over.

It came down to what the lesser of two evils was, in this case, and Loki couldn’t deny the simple breakdown of it.

Hela was confined to a single realm, now, and she could and would be content with that, it seemed.

Thanos was free to roam the cosmos, gathering the Infinity Stones, and enacting his idea of a solution on the universe.

Added on to that was the promise of being able to see Thor again. It made Loki’s decision easy. That, at least, had been what he’d thought.

It turned out the reality of it was so much worse than all that.

“He nearly died!”

Hela scoffed, easily denying his outrage like it was nothing. That was infuriating, but there was nothing Loki could do about it. He had agreed to her terms and, in response, for the moment, she had given him a few of the things he needed. One, had been the ability to change out of the clothing he’d died in. The rules of this plane of existence were still alien to him, but to his understanding, it worked something like the disguises he and Thor had resorted to on Earth when they’d been heading to visit Shady Acres. It had allowed him to dress himself in something a touch more comfortable, something that felt more like it belonged in a world between worlds. Black trousers, a wool tunic, with the sleeves extending down over his palms, long enough that his braces, a softer leather than the ones he’d died wearing, could cover them and hold them in place. Over those, he’d chosen a deep green cape that crossed over his shoulders, falling around him like a shroud.

It felt fitting. He couldn’t deny the edge of a dramatic air to it all appealed to him, but it still felt like this was how he should be dressed, if he was going to be appearing to Thor from beyond the veil.

He’d just thought that appearing to him would have been more permanent.

“I don’t think we need to worry about him having died, though. He’s not joined us, so our piece is still in play. Don’t get so worked up, you sound... whiny.”

Hela, for her part, hadn’t put aside the clothing she’d died in, and while she wasn’t wearing her helm, she’d kept her green cape that shimmered in the odd half-light of this place, reminding Loki of acid and poison and the grass in the meadows outside Asgard, all at once. She seemed very nearly regal in it, rather than crazed, as she’d appeared in her final moments.

For the most part, in fact, she didn’t seem crazed as she had been in her final moments. It was an interesting change that Loki would have loved to spend more time examining, but now wasn’t the time.

“How am I not supposed to get worked up? The pact we made was that, in return for my cooperation in securing _Thor’s_ cooperation, you would resurrect me. Not that securing Thor’s cooperation in killing Thanos would have been a difficult thing, and you _knew_ that, after what he did to me.” Loki scowled, fighting hard to keep his face neutral. Finding out that Thor was alive and vowing revenge on Thanos had been a wonderful thing; seeing the way he was going about it had been less so. “He’s going to get himself killed before he even gets within five feet of the brute, and letting me get through to him like that would have helped, but you didn’t let it last.”

Hela’s amused smile had been falling a little bit more with every breath Loki had taken, and now she let it slip away. “So, you think he’s going to go find another star to stand in the direct path of?”

“No, he’s--”

“--Is he going to find a sun instead this time, perhaps? That would be quite the show. And pointless, given that he _has_ the axe now.”

“He almost died getting it!”

Saying those words, the reality of it truly sank in for Loki.

Thor had set himself a mission to kill Thanos himself, but the cost of that could be high. It could be terribly high, and Loki didn’t know how to get that across. There was no way for him to tell Thor outright that when he said the words ‘ _he almost died_ ’ the amusement had flared back into Hela’s eyes like it had never been extinguished.

Because that was the other part of all this. If Thor died in his attempt to kill Thanos, Hela was making no concessions. She would count it as Loki failing to hold up his end of their bargain, and Thor would be left alone to continue on to Valhalla.

Loki, on the other hand, would return to Hel with her.

There would be no seeing Thor again. Not ever.

“He didn’t die though, did he?” Hela asked, her deep voice calm and smooth as forged steel. “I’m sure part of that is because he’s stubborn. Falling from the Bifrost didn’t kill either of you, either. But we both know you stepped in with the star. You’re not as disconnected from your former self as you feared, are you?”

For the first time since Loki had seen Thor on Nidavellir, he felt thrown off by Hela. She had the advantage, in these situations, because she was the one with all the power, the one holding all the cards. She was the one with the knowledge, and Loki was simply fumbling through, doing what he could to make the situation work, as he did so well.

Seeing Thor standing in front of that star, however, had been something else entirely, too huge for him to stumble his way through, and more than anything he’d wished that he could have been able to shield Thor, even a little. The way he had when they’d been younger, and fighting battles against armies whose numbers counted fire giants, and Thor had insisted on leading the charge. If he’d been able, he would have reached through the veil and covered Thor with his seiðr, and hoped it would be enough to lessen the damage the star would do.

“Wait.” Hela pressed her lips together, eyes narrowing. She moved around him, the stones that _should_ have been disturbed by her boots not shifting at all as she did. “You didn’t know you could do that? You weren’t actively trying to reach him? To protect him?”

There was a mocking note in her voice, but Loki wouldn’t let it rile him. There was too much he was learning, now, to jeopardize all this.

“My. We are an interesting little witch, aren’t we?” Hela finished her circle, stopping in front of him and looking him over. “Powerful, for a Jötunn runt. But, either way... He didn’t die because you held off quite a bit of what _should_ have killed him. He got close, as you both saw.” Her hand flicked, idly, indicating the scorched rock where Loki had knelt next to Thor. “And then you told him to find a way to talk to me. So, you’re intending to keep him alive, I’m intending to rule my realm as things _should_ be, and he’s intending to kill Thanos. Everything is in place.”

Loki flexed his fingers, before crossing his arms and tucking them under his elbows. He had told Thor to find a way to talk to Hela, because she could resurrect him. If Loki was lucky, that would be sooner, rather than later, but, knowing that he’d been able to use magic to reach through and get to Thor, in some way, was an interesting new development.

He was probably still going to need Hela, that wasn’t up for debate, but it did level the playing field, somewhat.

“So, he has the axe.”

Hela was still speaking, apparently unfazed by the fact that Loki hadn’t responded. He could understand that kind of ego. He’d tended to one that aspired to be it, once upon a time.

“Where does he go, now? I was watching when he was rescued from the wreckage, so I knew he intended to come here.” She looked over her shoulder, taking in the cold expanse of Nidavellir. “But where do you think he’s gone? Stormbreaker can summon the Bifrost, and he could have gone anywhere, in pursuit of that monster. Tell me, since you know each other... _well._ ” Loki bit down on the inside of his lower lip to keep from commenting, letting her enjoy knowing their little secret. “Where does Thor go next?”

The answer wasn’t something Loki knew for certain. There was no clue in the darkness of this world, and there had been no hint in Thor’s words.

But, when he thought about it, the answer was simple.

Thanos posed a threat, and Thor was determined to minimize that. He would go to the place where Thanos stood the most chance of appearing.

“He’s gone to help his friends.” Loki answered, making his tone as flippant as possible, as though it was a failing on Hela’s part that _she_ hadn’t figured this out. “He’s gone to Midgard.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

When it came to battle, Thor didn’t make mistakes like the one he’d made today.

Thanos’ words still rang in his head while he helped Steve, Bruce and the others in tending to the Wakandan forces. Thor had never properly met their king, the man everyone called the Black Panther, but he could feel his loss through the grief and confusion of his people keenly. Okoye, the general, had been so stricken by it at first that Thor feared the loss would break her. She was a stronger person than many men and gods he knew; she’d pulled together, and now was working alongside them in the clean-up and organization.

The battle had been hard fought, and the true number of those who had died was still unknown. Okoye was working with a mountain of man, who’d introduced himself to Thor as M’Baku, to truly understand the scope of how many they’d lost.

Briefly, Thor had questioned Steve on why they’d come _here_ , and Steve had explained, in a voice that was flat with loss, that it had been in an attempt to save Vision.

Both of them knew how pointless that had been, without it being spoken.

How pointless might it have been, Thor wondered, if he’d done what Thanos had mocked him over? If he had gone for the head, as he knew he should have?

Thor had lived 1500 years, and every enemy he’d brought down, he had never ignored the importance of where the fatal blow should land. The head was the only option if you wanted to ensure that an enemy would fall. Thanos, the chief enemy of Thor’s long life, would have been the same.

Revenge had sung too seductive a song, it seemed. It wasn’t simply the knowledge that he had Thanos hanging by a thread with Stormbreaker buried in his chest. It was the knowledge that he’d come to Midgard with, and the thing that seemed out of his reach, now, no matter how hard he’d tried.

He had seen Loki. He’d heard his voice and felt his touch, of that he was certain. Yes, he had been horribly close to death, but a hallucination that vivid, that detailed in what Loki was saying, seemed too much for his brain to have put on him in his potential final moments. It seemed, in truth, too cruel.

Still, there was a part of Thor that was certain of what it had been, and that part was entrenching itself deeper every hour, making the pit of grief in Thor’s heart seem to span miles.

What would he have given, just to see Loki one last time in this life? Loki _should_ be in Valhalla, and, as he’d promised, the sun would shine on them again. If Thor were to die, he would die going to his friends, his family, and the greatest love he’d known in his life, who was both. It would have only been fair that a vision of Loki would be what he saw as he moved on.

But not like that. Not a Loki who was telling him he’d made a pact with Hela.

Ruminating over that, and over the fact that he’d had Thanos on his knees and failed to deliver the killing blow, had been the constant background noise of everything Thor had done since the snap had happened. The sun had long been set in Wakanda, the hospital was set up, and the city’s defences were back in place. For the moment, everything was still, at least as much as it could be.

They had gathered in what Thor understood to be T’Challa’s council room, or throne room. He hadn’t asked, but it was evident in the way the room was laid out, and the high chair at one end, that this was a room for the king. There were few of them left, now, but despite the weight of that, and the weariness of the battle, none of them were seated. None except the Princess Shuri, T’Challa’s younger sister.

Bruce had explained to Thor in a quiet tone that they had come here for her abilities. She was a genius beyond what he or Tony had been able to achieve, and they’d hoped she could save Vision. She could have, from what Thor understood, if only she’d been given time.

Now, she was sitting in her brother’s chair, quiet, with a faraway look in her eyes. Okoye stood near her, that same look in her own. Thor could see grief in both of them, disbelief, and a kind of numbness that came with the realization that the world had changed. Perhaps permanently. The princess had been attacked, Thor understood, and most of her guards had been killed. She had a bruise on one cheek, but she didn’t seem to be feeling that.

Thrust into a situation like this, Thor imagined the bruise would seem of little consequence.

Natasha, Stark’s friend Rhodes, and Bruce were standing by the large windows overlooking the city, talking in quiet tones. It had taken some time to remove Bruce from the Hulkbuster armour, and the Hulk had been no help. That fact was troubling. Thor had witnessed the Hulk fight against Thanos on the smouldering _Statesman_. He’d seen him _lose_. There was a good chance that one of their greatest weapons in this fight may never resurface because of that, and, even if he did, he may be useless against the Titan.

They were all proving useless against the Titan.

Steve had been gone for some time, now. In the long hours following the battle, he had been at the fore, helping with the injured and fallen, but, as they had filed into the throne room to finally discuss what had happened, he’d excused himself, pulling a small phone from the bag he’d taken off the quinjet. Bruce had given it a significant look, and simply answered Thor’s questioning one with ‘Tony’.

Tony, who had been taken off Earth, along with the sorcerer, Strange. Bruce had said there was a good chance that a young gifted person called Spider-Man had gone with them, as well. There had been no mentions of him on the news following the attack on New York. Bruce hadn’t needed to elaborate on that; if he hadn’t been mentioned, or seen since, he was either gone, or he’d died before Tony had left Earth.

Rocket had declined to join them. Thor had been surprised at his willingness to help with the aftermath of the snap. Rocket had no idea what had become of his friends, and, from what Thor had witnessed, when he’d left him to come to this meeting, he was going to be hard-pressed to find out. The transmitter he’d been using – either built in the princess’ lab with her permission, or brought along to Earth, Thor wasn’t sure – wasn’t getting anything back.

It was a frustrating situation Thor could empathize with.

Since coming to this room, he had been pacing, and quietly calling out to Loki. Reaching for him with everything he could, without being obvious. Everyone had lost, today, but Thor knew that aside from Bruce, there would be no one here who could understand why he would be calling for his brother, of all people. Despite the years, and their understanding that Loki had been dead, they wouldn’t be so quick to forgive him for the things he’d done.

Not without a long discussion from Thor on the influence of Thanos, the change in Loki, and the comparison of Loki to their newly-triumphant foe. It was something they simply didn’t have time for, right now.

So, Thor reached out alone. He prayed every prayer he knew, modified every incantation he could remember, stretched his mind with his eyes closed until he was sure he could feel a headache building behind them.

And he got nothing in return. Not the hint of a laugh, not a flash of touch, not even a vague sense that Loki was there. It was becoming harder and harder to hold on to the idea that what he’d seen after taking the force of the star _wasn’t_ his dying brain playing cruel tricks on him. Perhaps Loki truly was out of reach in Valhalla, simply waiting for Thor to one day join him.

“All right.”

Thor opened his eyes and turned at the sound of Steve’s voice. He’d returned to the room almost soundlessly, but his return had everyone quieting down – not that they had been loud to begin with – and turning his way.

The cell phone was still in Steve’s hand, but as he noticed Thor looking at it, he tucked it away. Taking a breath, he moved to stand behind one of the chairs, hands gripping the back of it like a brace, like something to hold on to in the middle of this unthinkable storm.

“Situation as I understand it is not good. Thanos did exactly what he threatened to do, which is wipe out half the population of the universe. Unfortunately, that means most of the allies we had left to turn to.” Steve wasn’t looking anywhere in particular, and that made it all the more obvious that he was trying to get through this. He’d watched Bucky fall to ashes, and they’d not been able to find Sam. Two of his nearest and dearest friends had disappeared, they didn’t know where Tony was or if he was alive, and the teammates they had gained over the years, friends in their own rights, had disappeared as well. “I couldn’t reach Maria Hill or Nick Fury. I was able to get ahold of Sharon, but she can’t help us. The CIA, FBI... Every law enforcement agency and first response group in the world is in chaos right now, trying to work with their ranks decimated. The results of this... Aren’t good. The death toll from the fallout is high, but they can’t know it for sure, because they don’t know who’s died in accidents and who disappeared in...”

He didn’t need to continue. Everyone in the room understood. The situation would be the same all across the universe. People had disappeared, and, as a result, catastrophes had ensued. The people who were meant to be helping when catastrophe struck were at a loss and scrambling because they had been targeted in the event alongside everyone else.

Thanos’ logic was flawed. He wasn’t preserving resources at all, when what he’d done was taking from the universe the minds and bodies who could make those resources work.

“We are on our own.” M’Baku spoke up. He’d moved, when Steve had come into the room, and was now standing at Shuri’s left side. “Wakanda, and the Avengers. What’s left of you. Wakanda has never relied on the outside world for assistance, and we won’t start now. But, T’Challa counted your team, Captain Rogers, as allies. With how everything has gone in the last day, I will do the same.”

Steve nodded. “It’s appreciated. But... I’ll be honest, I don’t know where to start, here. I don’t know who we can reach out to, how we can track Thanos.” He looked up, meeting Thor’s eyes. “I don’t even know if he’s alive, and if he is, what state the gauntlet or the stones are in.”

There was no judgment there, but Thor felt it being imposed from within. He’d been the one who hadn’t gone for the head, and when Thanos had spoken, he’d acted, quick, trying to destroy the gauntlet and stones himself with his lightning. It hadn’t worked, and Thanos had gotten away with the gauntlet, intact if charred.

“I would say that’s our first goal. Once the people here are safe, and we know Wakanda is stable, we should be looking for Thanos. I would like to finish the job.” Thor crossed his arms, looking away from Steve, to Natasha, Rhodey and Bruce, and then the last leaders of Wakanda. “We can be sure that the gauntlet is with him, and given that he escaped, we can assume the stones are intact. We need the gauntlet. We need--”

The throne room doors boomed this time, when they opened, stopping Thor in the middle of his sentence, and having everyone on edge, turning that way.

“Wow. Nice warning, guys.” Rocket shook his head, stalking into the room to join them. The transmitter he’d been using was still in hand, but the lights on it were off now, and it was silent, not even the hiss of empty air reaching Thor’s ears. “Sorry to interrupt your little meeting, but I have some news.”

He lifted the transmitter, and Thor smiled, knowing it was small, but at least it was genuine. “Your friends lived?”

Those words had been the wrong ones. The look in Rocket’s eyes shuttered slightly and he shook his head again. “Nah. They’re, uh. They’re gone. I got ahold of Nebula. You, uh, didn’t meet her, Thor. She’s Gamora’s sister. Kind of the same situation with you and your brother, them, but that’s not important now. She’s on Titan.”

That had everyone in the room paying a little more attention. It was true that they were all Midgardians, and, for the most part, that name wouldn’t mean anything to them. But they were gathered together with the understanding of where Thanos had come from, and that Rocket, too, was from space. A place called ‘Titan’, when they had referred to Thanos as the ‘Mad Titan’ in discussion, seemed a good thing to listen to.

“There’s a guy there, with her. He’s the only one that made it through the snap. His name’s Tony.”

The reaction was instant. Steve straightened, and Rhodey asked in unison with Bruce, “Tony’s alive?” Natasha uncrossed her arms, looking Steve’s way, clearly trying to assess what this meant. The Wakandans didn’t make any such moves, but Shuri did give an audible sigh, one that sounded more of relief than of disappointment.

“Sure, Tony’s alive. Whatever that means.” Rocket continued. “She said they’re trying to find a way off Titan. Back here. I have a frequency we can use to reach them, but it’s a little shitty.”

“Shitty’s better than nothing.” Steve answered. “Thank you, Rocket. It’s not much, but having Tony... Bruce, and Shuri. Between the three of you?”

Shuri nodded. “Perhaps we can use science to track him down. Find where he’s gone, at least. I’m sure those stones must give off an energy signature that can be tracked...”

This was good news, Thor thought. Knowing that Tony was alive. He could see that it was, in some part, comforting to Rocket. Knowing that _someone_ he knew had survived, and that they were with someone who may be able to help in finding Thanos did something to numb the pain of loss. It was doing the same for Thor, and he could tell that it was bringing Shuri back to life. Perhaps all wasn’t lost, if they could work together to find a way for this to be undone.

This was a small step, but it was still something. A jumping off point.

“That’s good and all, but, I did get through to one more person.”

The hush returned to the room, everyone’s attention back on Rocket. Rocket’s attention, however, was focused on Thor.

“You got a friend named Korg?”

The relief that washed over Thor felt nearly overwhelming. After everything, all the devastation, and his failure to kill Thanos before he made his move, he’d been too scared to hope. It was bad enough his near-death experience had taunted him with Loki, only to make it seem like Loki was truly out of reach. With the snap, Thor hadn’t wanted to hope his people had been spared. Brunnhilde hadn’t made contact, not that she’d been able to. Thor had feared, if the snap hadn’t gotten them, the attack on the _Statesman_ had, even if they’d escaped.

Half the population, on an escape pod, led by the new General of the Asgardian forces. The _Statesman_ hadn’t been a refuge that protected them, Thor had been too afraid to hope that pod, Korg and Brunnhilde had been enough. Not with how lethal Thanos had shown himself and the Black Order to be.

“Yes. Yes, I do. He escaped with half of my people.”

“And some broad named Brunnhilde? Or Valkyrie?”

Thor could feel the smile on his face, wide and genuine. “Yes, yes!”

For the first time since he’d come into the throne room, Rocket smiled.

“They made contact. I nearly hung up on that Korg guy, but she stepped in. The Asgardians that escaped your ship have survived. At least half of them. She said they’re about a day’s travel from, uh... Midgard?”

“Earth.” Thor answered quickly. “They’re almost here.”

“Sure. But, that’s what she said. I don’t know if that’s going to help with this or anythin’, but uh. Thought it would be good for you to know, not all of your people are dead.”

Thor nodded, moving over to crouch down, extending his hand to Rocket. “It is. All the news you’ve brought to us has helped, I think.” He clasped Rocket’s small paw in his own hand, giving it a firm shake, glancing at the others. “It isn’t a complete solution. There’s still work to be done. But I think your news has brought us some hope.”

Okoye and Natasha nodded, Bruce, standing to Natasha’s side, smiling for the first time in hours.

“We have at least some kind of plan, and all of our hope hasn’t been stomped out.” M’Baku said, smiling, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “I think it would be a good idea for us to get started on this plan as soon as possible, no?”

“I agree.” Steve spoke up. “But none of us can go forever without rest. I’m going to suggest that some of you get some sleep, at least. Try and rest. It’s been... a long day.” His words settled over the group of them, settling the mood somewhat, though Thor didn’t feel near the melancholy he’d felt before. “Lets get some sleep. We can take shifts.” He held up his hand, acknowledging Okoye as she opened her mouth. She gave him a curt nod, clearly satisfied with that. “And in, let’s say, eight hours? We meet up again. Shuri’s lab?”

“Would be best.” Shuri agreed.

“Good. Then... come on.”

Next to Bruce, Rhodey nodded. “We won’t get anywhere if we’re running on fumes.”

Sleep wasn’t something that Thor felt he needed. Having the news about his people, and Tony, was a relief, and he wanted to use that. He was ready to ride that until he _was_ exhausted. Use the good news to double-down on his efforts to discern what the vision of Loki had been.

The others left the throne room, going to the quarters that Shuri had given them for their own. It wasn’t until M’Baku left, though, that Okoye moved from her position, crossing the room to the throne room door, and shutting it behind his large frame.

“You say your friend is a Valkyrie?”

Thor nodded, walking towards her slowly. There was no threat, here. Okoye was a warrior, like himself. He understood what she was asking.

“We know this word, here. Outsiders like to think Wakanda undeveloped, but, as you’ve seen, we are quite advanced. I remember learning many things when I was growing up. The Dora Milaje girls are always fascinated by tales of our warriors, but also of other elite fighting forces who are women like us.”

She smiled, and Thor returned it. Seeing hope in her, when she had been so stricken by the loss of her king, was good. It gave him relief and hope to see her determination and life returning. “It will be good to meet one of the warriors of Norse legend. I look forward to fighting with her, when we find that monster and defeat him.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features art from both [Eepz](http://eepz.tumblr.com) and [Andlatitude](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com).
> 
> You can find their posts [here](http://eepz.tumblr.com/post/179599591393/here-is-one-of-my-art-pieces-for-the) and [here](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com/post/179599206064/heres-my-art-for-slamncram-s-thorki-big).

Reaching through the veil was never going to be an easy feat. For a time, very briefly, shortly after Frigga had died, Loki had almost been hurt that his mother, adoptive or no, hadn’t tried. She had to know that they were suffering, and for a witch as powerful as she’d been, it couldn’t have been that much of a difficulty.

It had taken a grief-induced nap and a few weeks of distance to accept the selfishness of his own behaviours. It had taken much, much longer than that to accept that, maybe, the further away from the veil you got, the harder it was.

And it was already hard enough when you were pressed right up against the damn thing, trying with all your might to get the attention of your idiot brother, without your megalomaniac sister catching on to what you were doing. It wasn’t that Loki didn’t _trust_ Hela, but he couldn’t. It had barely been a blink of time, to them, since they had defeated her on Asgard through the use of Surtur’s power. He couldn’t simply accept that she really was willing to give up on her quest for power simply because she was stuck in-between the realms, outside Valhalla, moving only between Limbo and Helheim. That seemed like a recipe to make her that much more hellbent on screwing them over, and the only way to get to Thor, right now, was through Loki.

That was what had led to where they were, now. Or, rather, where he was, while Hela ended up preoccupied by the presence of one of his doubles.

Being able to reach out to Thor when he’d been edging near death had been a useful piece of information, especially when it had come hand-in-hand with the knowledge that he had somehow reached through the veil and somewhat protected Thor. It meant that his magic wasn’t entirely gone, and, once he’d spent a few hours flexing his abilities, conspicuously due to Hela’s constant presence, he’d realized, it wasn’t really gone at all. It was harder to make it stretch, yes, but he hadn’t given it up when he’d crossed over.

That was a small mercy. It meant that he had been able to leave a double of himself with Hela while he did what he was trying to do now. It was a bold move, a crazy plan if he was being honest, but it was the only tool he had in his arsenal, and he was going to be kicking himself if he didn’t at least try.

They had arrived on Midgard to find that things were decidedly _not_ going the way they would like. Moving between worlds, as they were now, wasn’t like travelling with the Bifrost, and while it wasn’t like travelling on an encumbered space vessel like the _Statesman_ , either, it left a lot to be desired. For instance, speed.

Loki was sure that part of it had to be Hela holding them back. There was a voice inside that was telling him that was irrational, because she wanted Thanos dead and dealt with, too, and simply because that was something _he_ would do didn’t mean it was something _she_ would do, but he was doing a great job of ignoring that, in favour of adding it to reasons to distrust her. Somehow, despite the relative speed of their travel, they had arrived in Midgard, sought Thor out in Wakanda, and found...

A battlefield, and a battle truly _lost_.

Hela had been livid, and, thinking about it, it was reason enough that Loki should doubt her motives less. Her goal had been to make sure Thor finished what he needed to do, and what he needed to do was use that damn axe he’d had made for him on Nidavellir to kill Thanos. Loki couldn’t tell specifics of what had happened, but that evidently had not been how things had gone.

Souls, millions, billions of souls, lost to a void that was neither here, nor Valhalla, nor Helheim. Souls that should, rightfully, belong to Hela in good time, and wouldn’t, because Thanos had achieved what he wanted to achieve, and had wiped out half of civilization. Half of the universe’s population, gone in an instant.

And Hela was upset because it meant that getting those souls for _her_ to rule over was going to be much more difficult. Loki had spent a few hours with her, following Thor, paying attention to him, but chiming in when necessary. That hadn’t been much, but it had been enough. Once again, he could find that he related to her in the way she seemed capable of carrying on a monologue of annoyance and anger with little need for input from anyone else. That said, he knew where he needed to give input, agree with her or defend what it was Thor and the others were doing. He needed to keep her happy and appeased, or as close to that as she was going to get, no matter what.

It didn’t mean that he wasn’t watching Thor every spare second that he had, assessing him, trying to parse out where his brother’s head was. The fact of the matter was that Hela may have been inconvenienced of everything she’d wanted – for the moment – but while Loki sympathized, he knew that Thor was hurting in a way she couldn’t begin to grasp.

Hela didn’t seem to feel and care in the same way as Thor did. It scared Loki to think that there had once been a time when he had been so much closer to the way she processed things than to the way Thor did. He wasn’t free of thinking and feeling things the way Hela did, no. Not entirely. But years of ruling Asgard in peace, and the reconciliation he’d felt with Thor, along with the peace he’d felt in becoming the protector Asgard needed, he felt like he was less of the being he’d been when he’d been holding a plaza in Stuttgart hostage.

And because he was, and because he wanted, more than anything, to be back at Thor’s side, calling him an idiot for mourning him, he was more concerned with what was happening on the other side of the plane he was beginning to feel more and more trapped in.

His plan had come to him around the time the talking raccoon had interrupted Thor and Rogers’ war council. He had his magic, and he _needed_ to reach out to Thor. There was no way around that. Thor needed to know what was happening in realms of existence he couldn’t see, and Loki needed to know what, precisely, had happened in Wakanda before he and Hela had gotten there. That part, in the very least, Loki thought he would be able to reach. It would mean extending himself, but he would do it. Especially if it ended up being something he could use to curry favour and further trust from Hela.

Gaining trust from her by doing distrustful things seemed like a good standard to hold to.

It had been a few hours, since then. The palace was quieter, in Wakanda, but that wasn’t because many of the remaining population were sleeping. Yes, they were quiet, in beds in many cases, but, unless sleep had won out over grief and terror, many of them were still awake. Loki had left his double with a ranting Hela, and gone to walk the halls of the palace, searching out the person within these walls he needed to most.

When he found Thor, it was almost a shock to him that he was sleeping. Thor was a God, he was greater than most everyone in this place, and yet _he_ was counted among those who were sleeping? It was so jarring that Loki nearly didn’t believe what he was seeing.

But even Gods were worn down by the things they experienced. Slipping into Thor’s quarters, Loki went over everything his brother had endured in the past days. The slaughter of half their surviving people. The death of Heimdall. _His_ death. Being thrown into space, and picked up by... From what Loki had gathered, a group of space pirates. Going to Nidavellir to find it frozen, taking the full blast of a star to bring it back to life, even temporarily, almost losing his life in the process, and then, travelling to Midgard to attempt to kill the madman who slaughtered his people, killed his brother, and threatened the rest of the galaxy, only to _lose_.

Leave alone the shock that encountering Loki when he was near death would have been, and Thor had experienced a trying day, to say the least. Loki could understand why he’d given in to sleep.

And, in plain facts, it made what Loki wanted to do much simpler if Thor wasn’t conscious during it. He had used this particular magic on Brunnhilde back on Sakaar, and it packed a punch. Not quite the one she did, mind, but it was just going to be simpler if he could reach Thor’s mind, through the veil, without having to worry about him fighting it and somehow doing damage to himself.

Wakanda wasn’t a myth to Loki. He’d heard of it, in passing, while he’d been keeping a watch on Midgard during his ruling of Asgard. It may not have been the most attentive eye, but he had been watching, and had been aware when Captain Rogers and Stark had something of a little falling out. There had been a lot of players on that board that Loki hadn’t been aware of previously, like the near-child who had fought on Stark’s behalf, or the ex-convict who’d seemed to be fumbling through the whole thing. Stark’s best friend Rhodes, he’d known, and watching Thor during the idiocy that was the Ultron crisis had introduced him to Sam Wilson and Wanda Maximoff, as well as the construct Vision, who, Loki now understood, was among the dead.

And also the primary reason Wakanda was partially in ruins, but that wasn’t for Loki to comment on.

During that, Loki had made note of a newcomer named T’Challa, and understood that he was from Wakanda. He’d also made note that the tech he was employing seemed far beyond what Midgard deemed ‘third world’. He had, apparently, been right. It was a point he filed away in his own favour; all things considered, he was both glad he’d been able to remember information he’d deemed somewhat useless to him, especially when he’d been spending his days in ways Thor would describe as lazy and aloof.

Wakanda was a beautiful place, from what Loki had seen, and while the palace did remind him of the one that had once stood in Asgard to a point, it was very much its own, smooth curves and sharp corners speaking of a history much different, and an understanding of the present that was far more in-tune. Despite the fact that the country had operated under the guise of something far lesser, the room that Thor was staying in was decent. Large bed, large windows – overlooking a field scorched and torn from the battle – and a private bathroom. It wasn’t the apartments that they’d been accustomed to, growing up, but Loki knew his brother, and he knew he wouldn’t mind.

He simply needed a place to lay his head and rest.

Loki hoped his intrusion wouldn’t hamper that too much.

Being stuck between one plane of existence and the other made for a lot of logistical confusion that Loki had been trying to work out in the moment. He couldn’t interact with any of the formally living, and he couldn’t influence things physically. Magically, he had something of a reach, though, and that was what he was clinging to as a last resort to reach Thor.

Climbing up onto the bed where his brother slept, he did his best to ignore the fact that the mattress and sheets did not dip or rustle with his movements and that, though his knee brushed Thor’s hip was he moved to sit over him, he didn’t feel it, and neither Thor nor his clothing moved. He was here, but he wasn’t, and it was a hurdle he needed to get over, because Thor needed to know things. Loki couldn’t continue working with Hela, while everything banked on Thor’s performance, and simply trust her.

That was a change he hadn’t seen coming, but maybe he was getting wiser after centuries of living, and once he had a few years to recuperate from what he’d gone through. What he’d put them both through.

There wasn’t time, right now, to go over his own motivations. All Loki could do was follow his gut, and trust it. It was the only thing he could trust, in this plane, and it was the thing that was guiding him to press his palm to Thor’s forehead, unsure if he _was_ feeling it, or if that was a trick of his mind. Taking a breath, more to steady himself than because he needed it, now, he closed his eyes, and _pushed_.

It gave way much easier than Loki could have anticipated, and, for a moment, he’d thought he was about to lose his sense of self in the roiling battle that unfolded within Thor’s mind.

He was dreaming.

No. This was a nightmare.

With a feeling of dread, Loki realized _no_ , this wasn’t Thor’s dream, or his nightmare. This was his memory. Loki had willed himself to see it, and perhaps he’d overcompensated out of fear that it may take more effort given their separation. Either way, he was seeing, now, what he needed to see, through Thor’s eyes.

The sun was blazing down, much like it had been when Loki and Hela had finally emerged onto Midgard, but nothing about the grounds, or the sparse jungle edges Thor was rocketing towards was quiet. The battle was in full swing, and with a lurch that made him feel sick, Loki saw him.

Thanos.

The Mad Titan looked out of place on this planet. He didn’t belong here. Large, full of wrath, bearing down on Maximoff and Vision, barely being held back by her while she, apparently, attempted to kill the android. Loki knew he was dead, now. He had to be, because Thanos had all the stones. Her attempts and anguish had been in vain.

That scene abruptly whited out, Thor’s attention drawn by something else, some beast, one of Thanos’ outriders, attempting to keep him from reaching its master. A distraction, Loki suspected, that may have become fatal for their side.

He’d ridden Brunnhilde’s memories of the Valkyries’ fall against Hela, millennia before. That had been somewhat like this, but he hadn’t accounted for the emotional attachment, or the fact that he could feel himself urging Thor back to the main battleground, back to Thanos, _kill him, kill him, kill him_.

He wasn’t fool enough to think that Thor, in a memory, heard him and responded, but as his desperation to see this end a different way from what he knew it had got worse, Thor ended it with the outriders, and turned back to Thanos.

Thanos, who now had the mind stone that had given Vision life, and was standing among Avengers that had tried and failed against him. Thor was the strongest of them all, couldn’t he send the Titan to the grave?

Despite what he knew, Loki felt triumphant as he watched, through Thor’s eyes, one of them artificial and new, as Stormbreaker pierced through the blast of the gauntlet, undeterred, and plunged straight into Thanos’ chest, through his armour, like it was nothing. Perhaps this _was_ a dream, then. This seemed all too much like it was about to end in Thanos’ defeat.

Loki felt it when Thor’s hands pushed the blade deeper into Thanos’ chest, felt ruthless _joy_ coursing through him at the sound of agony he let out. For everything Thanos had done, he would pay. He would _die_.

His joy was made cold by the sight of the gauntlet raising in his peripheral vision, Thanos’ words echoing in his mind like it was a hollow chamber made to house them over and over again.

_You should have gone for the head_.

“He was right. I know he was.”

Thor’s voice, clear and heavy with guilt, paired with the lurching feeling Loki had of falling out of the memory disoriented him for a moment. It took a breath before he felt on his metaphorical feet again, another before he got his bearings. No longer was he buried in Thor’s memories, but he was out, again, in the bedroom that Thor currently called his own. At least, in a version of it. Looking down, and seeing the way the mattress was dipping under his knees, and the way the sheet over Thor’s stomach and chest bunched under Loki as he straddled him, he knew this wasn’t full wakefulness.

But it was wakefulness of a kind. There was no denying that, not with the way Thor had only seemed to let Loki get his bearings in the most simple of terms before he was guiding Loki’s hand from his forehead, kissing his palm, and using that arm to pull Loki down into his arms.

                                                       

“This is a dream?”

The note in Thor’s voice was difficult for Loki to place. It was somewhere heartbreaking, between desperation and resignation, and the sound of it made him hurt in a way that felt like he hadn’t recently died. Shaking his head, he laid his weight against Thor’s body, pressing kisses to his jaw and feeling the scratch of his beard against his lips. It was almost cruel how real it felt.

“Not exactly. Somewhere in between a dream and reality, I think.” Loki answered, finally lifting his head to meet Thor’s eyes. It was still so odd, though he’d been watching him like a hawk since they had gotten to Wakanda, and he’d been there in Nidavellir, to see the brown eye in place of his eye patch, and in place of his original blue one. “Not sure how I feel about this eye, to be honest, brother. It doesn’t suit you the way the patch did.”

Thor’s laugh was strained, and Loki knew why. He could see the confusion, restrained hope, and stark hurt, even in the artificial eye.

“You _would_  complain about my eyes, after making me relive that.” His voice softened, one hand moving up and into Loki’s hair, brushing it back from his face. “It’s really you, isn’t it? It was you on Nidavellir, too. I didn’t hallucinate that.”

“No. Not exactly, though you almost killed yourself with that star. Idiot move, that was.”

“I didn’t die, though.”

Loki bit the inside of his lip, trying and failing to keep from smiling. What was this? He wasn’t entirely sure, couldn’t place the space he’d slid them into, but he didn’t hate it. Thor was aware of what was happening, and Loki could talk to him. He didn’t need to influence him through implanted dreams, hoping they took hold.

That was the important thing, here, and Loki knew that.

It just needed to wait a few seconds longer. There was only so much looking at Thor he could do, given the circumstances, before he didn’t bother restraining himself any further.

The kiss was hard, and desperate. Bruising, if Loki had been able to be bruised, Thor’s hands gripping him like a lifeline, his own cupping Thor’s face, holding on to him like if he didn’t, he would slip away. There was no shame in the quiet sounds he made, letting Thor chase his mouth when he tried to stop the kiss, part of him knowing they were operating on borrowed time. His body felt alight, thrilled from Thor’s touch. The _idea_ of Thor’s touch.

Because this wasn’t _really_ real, and there was a reason for that.

This time, when Loki pulled back, he pressed down on Thor’s shoulders, pinning him back against the mattress, a firm message that they needed to stop. It wasn’t something he usually did, not without following it up with a move or word that made it obvious it wasn’t a ‘stop’ order, and the seriousness of that seemed to sober Thor faster than a bucket of cold water may have done.

“I _did_ die, Thor.” Those words seemed to hit Thor like a slap in the face, his eyes closing and chest rising with a deep, slow breath. They may not have been connected the way they had been when Loki was living out his memory of the battle, but he could take a stab at what Thor was feeling, and he knew it would be sharp and painful. “But I’m not in Valhalla. And I’m not in Hel. And I’m not exactly... alone.”

That got Thor’s attention, his eyes on Loki’s face again, mouth opening to ask questions that Loki cut off with a quick answer. “None of your friends are here with me. It’s, ah... Hela.”

“Hela.”

Loki frowned, narrowing his eyes at Thor. “Do you not believe me?”

“We saw her die with Asgard, Loki.”

Rolling his eyes, Loki leaned down. “Goddess of Death. Yes, she died, but that simply means she doesn’t get to flit in and out of the realms like you or--” _I_. That, currently, and possibly permanently, wasn’t the case. “Anyone else. She gets Helheim, she gets to rule it, as intended by her title. And she’s, supposedly, all right with that.”

Thor’s skepticism was written all over his face, and it felt good to see it. Thor was a better person than him, given to second chances and trusting that people would do better on their next go-round. It was heartening to see that he was having doubts about Hela’s sincerity, and that Loki wasn’t alone in that.

“So, where do you come in?”

Loki sighed, shifting, though he didn’t climb off of Thor. It felt like they had already been apart for eons, he didn’t want to lose the feeling of Thor’s warm body under him. “I’m a bargaining chip. You, my love, are her only hope for getting to rule as she wants. What Thanos is doing, and what he _has_ done, has disrupted the balance of the living _and_ the dead. There are souls in Helheim, yes, but many of the ones that disappeared when he snapped his fingers _also_ would have eventually found their way to Hela, if they’d been given the chance of natural progression.”

“Which they weren’t,” Thor filled in, “because Thanos used the gauntlet and the stones, so they must be somewhere else. Not Valhalla. Not Helheim. And not wherever you are. Limbo?”

“I’m thinking it’s something to that effect. She held me back from Valhalla – don’t.” Loki pressed his palms to Thor’s chest again, attempting to calm his rage. “In her own way, that’s doing us a favour, don’t you think? She has offered me something, in payment for making sure _you_ follow through on your goals.”

Thor didn’t need the explanation given to him. As much as Loki had taunted him when they were younger, and when they were growing up, and when he’d been consumed by his own self-hatred and madness, Thor was not stupid. He may not have had the mind that Loki did, but he was good at reading people and their motivations, and he was a master strategist. The answer came to him as easily as if Loki had been holding up a board with it carved out.

“She’ll return you to life, so long as I kill Thanos.”

“Mm. It’s what she says, anyway. She wants her realm, to be a queen as she was always supposed to be. You, as the one who masterminded her death, and the one of us who is the strongest – and still among the _living_ – are her best bet for that to happen. I understand you and your friends have a plan to find and deal with Thanos and the gauntlet?”

“To a point.” Thor answered, and Loki read the conflict in his face and voice. It was, at best, a shaky plan, but they were coming together, the Avengers. Loki had been surprised at Stark’s absence, but learning he’d been off-world, and was returning, did strengthen their numbers. As did Brunnhilde’s return, along with the surviving Asgardians and Sakaarian gladiators, had any of them survived. Thor’s caution was warranted after the way the battle in Wakanda had gone, though, and Loki wasn’t about to inject him with false hope. His brother had fought enough battles to know when words of imminent victory were empty; he wouldn’t appreciate it.

“To a point. That’s enough for me. The stones should have survived anything you put them through, if he was able to get away. That’s the important thing. I’ve learned some things from her, you know. Like the location of all those lost souls.” Loki enjoyed the way Thor was hanging onto his words, clearly fitting the information he was giving him into whatever strategy he was building in the back of his mind. “They’re in the Soul stone. So, get the stones...”

“Reverse the effect.” Thor filled in, smiling for the first time in discussing Thanos’ actions. “Set things right. And with the stones, we can kill him.”

Loki nodded. “And send him to Hel, where he belongs.”

“Where I should have put you, and would have, if I had known you would pull a stunt like the one you did.”

Hela’s voice was so sudden and so close that Loki jumped, straightening and looking over his shoulder and seeing nothing. That was worrying, and there was no way to hide it from Thor. He was already sitting up, hands on Loki’s waist, holding on like he could stop what he must have sensed was coming.

“We’re not alone?”

“I suspect not. I suspect she figured out I tricked her.” Loki said, turning back to Thor. His arms went around Thor’s shoulders, and he leaned down, kissing his lips, his cheek, his temple. “We don’t have long, my love.”

His whisper was enough for Thor to catch on. There was no way of knowing what Hela may or may not be able to hear, but Loki swore he could feel hands on his shoulders. Pulling him back, out of this dream, this pocket of consciousness that they had found for themselves, pulling his consciousness back to his body, or soul, or whatever it was that existed in Limbo.

“Think. We can’t trust her, and I don’t desire to speak with you only in dreams.” Loki pressed his lips to Thor’s temple again. “Promise me. Find a Plan B.”

Thor nodded against Loki’s shoulder, turning his face in, kisses brushing his neck, a movement that Loki knew was deliberate. Thor had last seen him alive with Thanos’ hand around his neck. He would want to banish those memories. “I will. I promise.”

Hela’s hands were pulling him back. Loki knew it, could feel himself being torn from the dream.

“Good.”

                                                       


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes art by [Andlatitude](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com).
> 
> Find her post [here](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com/post/179599206064/heres-my-art-for-slamncram-s-thorki-big).

                                                         

Loki would be the first to admit that he hadn’t seen the true extent of Hela’s rage up close and personal. Thor had, and it had cost him an eye. That had, however, been when they were among the living, and certain rules had applied. Now, they were confined to their own small playground, without tethers to a human form. Like his neck, Loki suspected anything Hela did to him here, in Limbo, wouldn’t be permanent, but he wasn’t keen to test that. It had been the whole reason he’d gone to the lengths he had with the double he’d left at her side.

Apparently, it hadn’t been enough.

Hela’s anger, right now, was manifesting itself in the form of her watching him like a hawk, unblinking with her hand twisted in the front of his tunic. They weren’t in their cruel, walled in version of Thor’s room in the palace, anymore. They were outside, under the Wakandan stars, and had Loki been alive, he was certain that he would have felt the chill of the night air. As it was, his mind tried to provide it for him, something to distract from Hela’s annoyance.

“You don’t trust me.”

Not the first words Loki had expected and, without his mouth consulting his self-preservation instincts, he laughed. “Can you blame me? Hela, you walked out of exile, destroyed Mjolnir, cast Thor and I both off the Bifrost, conquered Asgard – by _slaying_ its soldiers – and then attempted to replay that victory over all the nine realms.” Reaching up, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, wrenching her fingers loose enough that he could back out of her space. “And now, when I’ve _died_ , and provided you with a perfect patsy to get back to the plane of the living and resume your quest, you’re telling me, no, you’re fine to sit it out?”

Hela wasn’t trying to get hold of him again, and Loki took that freedom to pace away from her. He’d started out as resigned to this, and ready to hear whatever berating she planned to give him, but now he could feel his own rage building in his chest.

And it was wonderful. Despite everything, it made him feel _alive_ , and that could be addictive.

“Forgive me for not _trusting_ you, then, oh _great_ Hela, Goddess of Death, and, I’m sure, in the fineprint, _bullshit_.”

Hela’s eyebrows raised. “I do believe I’ve heard you called the God of Lies.”

“A cute nickname, to be sure, but I think we can both agree that is a title carried by _many_. Our father not excluded.” Perhaps it was a bit much to take a stab at Odin, now, when he had so recently passed, and Loki no longer felt the sting of never quite living up to his expectations, but if Odin could see them here, in this in-between existence, Loki felt sure he would agree the jab was well-placed. No matter how things had gone on that cliff in Norway, there was no denying that Odin hadn’t always been the greatest father.

To any of his children, and the half-sister before him was, Loki knew, walking and talking proof of that.

“You aren’t excluded from that, either. It’s why I don’t trust you. I don’t trust what you’re offering, _hel_ , I _barely_ trust that you can even resurrect the dead as anything but mindless, obedient corpses.” Loki turned his back on her, the grass rustling against the leather of his boots while he looked up at the stars, tracking their slow movement across the sky, easy, like horror hadn’t unfolded all over the universe today. “I have already been far too close to exactly that, once. I don’t much relish the chance to completely fill the role.”

Behind him, Hela was silent for a long while, almost as though she was giving him the chance to breathe his anger out and let it go. Loki very nearly turned around to see if she’d left him, unsure whether that would be a good or bad thing at this point. The stars would be his only company, then, and he wasn’t after silent companionship tonight. It was that resignation that nearly had him turning around to check if she’d left, but he was halted in his motions by the sound of her footsteps.

She moved around in front of him, her annoyance still billowing around her like her cape, obvious and on display for anyone who cared to look.

Unfortunately, Loki was the only one who could witness it.

“I cannot make you trust me. That much I know for certain, because you’re nearly as stubborn as I am, and I have more things to worry about than whether or not my bratty half-brother – if we can even call you that – plays along with my plans to the full effect. You would be an idiot if you completely and blindly trusted me, and I think you have learned since you passed that idiocy doesn’t suit you well. Don’t!” Hela held up her finger, effectively stopping Loki from arguing with her. As much as she claimed to hate Odin, she had inherited his mannerisms just as much as he and Thor had. “Don’t interrupt me. Don’t argue with me. What you did was stupid, and clearly you didn’t think it over before you did it. It was noble, of course, to die for Thor, and you would have gone to Valhalla if I hadn’t intercepted your spirit. But it _was_ stupid, and I won’t break that to you gently _simply_ because I want your trust.”

It stung, but Loki understood it. He had known, the moment that he’d began the ruse of pledging himself to Thanos – and in truth, pledging himself to Thor – that it was a fool’s errand. Thanos had two of the Infinity Stones, and Loki had a small dagger. It was little more than a distraction, something to keep him from hurting Thor, and it had worked. Even if it had ended like _this_ , Loki couldn’t be entirely displeased with it.

But, he also couldn’t argue that it wasn’t _stupid_.

“You can believe me, or you can choose to think that I have an ulterior motive. I won’t work hard to win your trust, because, in the end, you and I _do_ have a common goal. He needs to stay alive. He needs to stay alive, because there are few others in the universe that can defeat Thanos. He came damn close, and if _you_ are the motivation he needs to complete that mission, I will dangle you in front of his face every night until the titan is dead and trapped in Helheim for eternity.”

The conviction in Hela’s voice was more persuasive than anything she’d said to Loki thus far. Perhaps there was something to that. Thanos wanted to be the master of all. He wanted to feel like a benevolent god, someone who saved the universe through the strength of his will and the steadfast hardiness of his convictions. In doing so, he was fulfilling a role that belonged to Hela. It was, in essence, the very least she had left, now that Surtur had annihilated her, and, with Asgard, the source of her power.

To Loki’s knowledge, there wasn’t anything she could do to come back from this side of the veil. She may very well be able to resurrect Loki from this place, but Loki was sure that if she had that sort of power for herself, she would have already been out, chasing after the mad dream she’d had before the destruction of Asgard.

“I can’t trust you.” The words weren’t a surprise to Loki and, seeing Hela’s expression, he knew they weren’t a surprise to her, either. Even if they were at odds, Loki could look at her and see elements of himself. Perhaps a little more mad, a little less pampered and indulged, but they were there. It was humbling, in its own way.

“Evident. I heard you telling our brother and it was apparent, when I realized the reason you were being so terribly obedient was because you’d left a decoy with me so you could run off to Thor and tell your lover my _dastardly_ , untrustworthy bargain.” Her mouth curved in a smirk, her tone making it evident that she thought this a very good jab at Loki.

“It took you long enough to catch on.”

“I was so glad not to hear your whining for a while, I didn’t think to look closer. For such a skilled sorcerer, you could have put a _bit_ more work into it.”

Loki sighed, rolled his eyes. Arms crossed, he nodded, a gesture for Hela to go on. It was received the way he’d intended, met with an eye roll from her side, too, while she put her hands on her hips. This was as serious a matter as they were going to discuss, and she would come to the table if Loki was willing. No more jabs and barbs.

“Trust me, or don’t, but Helheim and Limbo are all I have left to me. It does me no good if all I have left is populated by a handful of what it should have had, in time. I will be no queen, no real Goddess of Death, if I have nothing left in my realms. Thor, and his friends, can help reverse that.”

Loki nodded again. “They have a plan. I will give them this, there are enough strategists among them, and enough desperation shared, that they have a chance. The girl seems smart.”

“She does. Brilliant minds, and a pack of capable warriors, and the natural order may just stand a chance to return. But I deserve to have my stake represented, and my claims and concerns protected just as much. So, I contribute what I can. If Thor and the others are victorious, he can have you back.” Given every comment she’d made on their relationship up until now, Loki expected another jab. No matter what peace they were attempting to make, Hela knew their relationship was unconventional, and far from something the princes would have flaunted before the fall of Asgard. That was why her tone was surprising him, along with the lack of mocking in her eyes when she spoke next. “It’s obvious the losses he’s suffered, many admittedly at my hand, would be lessened if he had you back at his side. I think it’s a fair bargain. The universe restored for his soulmate’s company.”

This was more in-line with what Loki expected of Hela.

She’d had a birthright, or something she’d understood to be her birthright, and she’d lost it, again, and again, until, now, she had the barest scraps of it left. And she was content to be pleased with that and that alone, because there was nothing else left. There was no banishment to escape, no living realms to be conquered; she had the realms that were left to her as the Goddess of Death.

Now, even those had fallen under attack, and been ripped away from her. She was promised something, the very last thing that she could have hoped to have, and in answer the universe had been rendered unnatural by a madman with a glove and a handful of powerful rocks.

“In another life, I think you and I may have gotten along from time to time.” Loki commented, softly, but with sincerity, perhaps for the first time since he’d laid eyes on Hela in this state. “Maybe I can’t trust you completely, but keeping Thor alive, and making sure he, or _someone_ , puts an end to Thanos and reverses what he’s done? I can see what I can do about that.”

 

 

 

To say that there was a lot that needed to be done was an understatement. The morning after the Battle of Wakanda, Thor had woken up not feeling like he’d actually gotten much rest, but with a sense of purpose that he’d been missing since Thanos had raised his hand the afternoon before. It was something that he wished he could transfer to the others merely through his presence but, after what they’d discussed in the throne room the night before, there seemed to be a rising sense that _something_ could be done, and that was motivating people. Everywhere Thor went, the palace or streets were full. People were helping with rebuilding, with aid, with finding shelter for those who had none, the list went on.

It was inspiring, but it didn’t slip Thor’s notice that none of it had needed to happen _here_. The battle had taken place quite far from the city proper, but there were still buildings along the perimeter that had been damaged, and these people had been the ones to have suffered so great a loss. Not only had they lost their king in the snap, but they had lost friends, parents, children, siblings and loved ones in addition to those who had already fallen in the field.

These people had suffered, but they were rallying.

And it was beyond Thor’s belief that they were willing, in their time of grief, shock and rebuilding, to help him further.

“I’m happy to take the survivors elsewhere. There was a cliff, in Norway--”

“--Did this cliff have houses? Beds? Food?”

M’Baku’s interruption had been abrupt, but not disrespectful. Thor had quickly learned how to interact with this one. He was brash, and loud, but he was a good leader, a close friend of King T’Challa, and he was accommodating, despite what Okoye had explained about his people being wary of outsiders. The Jabari had lost because of a war that had come to Wakanda on the backs of outsiders, and there could have been every chance that M’Baku would refuse to give hospitality, and insist that the Asgardians be made to go elsewhere.

Thor wouldn’t have blamed him. The strain on Wakanda was already significant, and though he didn’t know that his people would be a _great_ burden, there was no denying that they added to the number of people to be kept track of, and cared for, when so many here already needed care.

M’Baku, like Okoye and Shuri, had been happy, however, to have the Asgardians here for the time being. It was best, he’d said, to add their people to those of Wakanda. If the Asgardians were in able condition, they could help with whatever needed done, and would be given beds and food in repayment.

It was more than Thor could have hoped. The plan, when they’d set the _Stateman_ ’s course for Earth had been to find that cliffside in Norway, again. Thor had known that he had enough connections with his friends to work something out for the Asgardians. It wasn’t like there were many of them left, and they would have been happy to contribute. That plan had gone to the back burner after Thanos’ attack, and for good reason. In the future, perhaps it was something that Thor would pursue, but, for now, they needed to rely on the hospitality and good will of their allies.

And he was thankful to have it.

“Thank you, again. You’re right. There wasn’t much of anything on that cliff. A lot of grass, which could be used for beds and food, but after what they’ve endured...”

M’Baku nodded, and clapped Thor on the shoulder. “I understand. For now, I agree with the princess and General Okoye. Your people are welcome in Wakanda, until this crisis has been reversed.”

Reversing what Thanos had done. That was just part of the goals they had all agreed upon. Thanos would pay for what he’d done, of that there was no doubt, because if he didn’t, there would be no guarantee that reversing his actions would keep it from happening again. Thanos would pay with his life, which was what Thor had always intended. It still stung that he’d failed at that, when he’d had the axe buried in the titan’s chest.

It had already been on his mind last night, before Loki had stumbled into his memories. That was something his talented sorcerer of a brother had done to him before. Reliving battles that Thor had fought, sometimes seeing himself through Thor’s eyes, sometimes simply getting a firsthand account of a battle he hadn’t fought. It had been a familiar thing in their youth, but feeling the nudge and pull of it in his restless sleep, last night, had brought it all rushing back to Thor, assuring him without a doubt that, in some form, his brother was there.

Loki wasn’t alive. Not truly. He’d been held back from Valhalla, but kept from falling into Hel, and for that, Thor supposed he owed Hela thanks. Had Loki passed to either of those places, Thor knew he would not have seen or heard his brother again. Not until he, himself, passed, and even then there was no promise. Loki’s words were not a direction for the greater powers in the universe to follow, and though the sun may shine on them again, fate was known to be cruel enough that it would have them be separate.

Now, there was a chance. Loki had made a pact with Hela, a bargain, and though he didn’t trust her, Thor was comforted by it. Up until his father’s death, he hadn’t known of Hela’s existence, but, as the Goddess of Death, if anyone could do what Loki said Hela was promising, she was the one. It meant a few things, namely, that Thanos needed to be defeated.

That wasn’t a hardship. It was something that Thor had already been planning to do. If he didn’t die at Thor’s hand, Thor would still do everything in his power to make sure Thanos fell and saw all his twisted _hard work_ undone. It now just came with the added incentive of getting Loki back.

_If_ Hela could be trusted, which Thor doubted. She was his sister, and perhaps, if things had been different, they may have been friends. That hadn’t been the case, however, and her change of attitude towards conquering the nine realms was suspect. Loki’s plea that Thor find a Plan B was just fine, in that regard.

The last thing he wanted was to hinge his emotional stability’s return on something their mad half-sister may or may not be willing, never mind _able,_ to achieve.

In order to find a Plan B, though, Thor needed the insight of someone who wasn’t Midgardian. That was proving difficult, right now. Everyone among them was Midgardian, with the exception of Rocket, but his knowledge of things beyond the living universe was non-existent at best. What Thor needed was someone Asgardian, and just that person was coming.

They had spent the better part of the day working to prepare room for the Asgardian refugees, and now, with something making itself known in the clouds on the furthest perimeters of Wakanda’s border, Thor was going out with Okoye, and Bruce, in a vehicle that would have no problems transporting the Asgardians from the landing site back into the city. It was hovering over the ground, moving quickly, empty except for the three of them.

“How much weigh can this thing take?” Bruce asked.

Okoye spared a few seconds, looking at him over her shoulder while she clearly toyed with giving him the answer. “Enough.”

Bruce frowned. “It’s just because – one of – one of the refugees? He’s huge. Probably about M’Baku’s size. And he’s made of rocks.”

Okoye looked over at Thor sharply, and, when he nodded, she raised her eyebrows. That was a look that Thor had come to know well over his years of dealing with the Midgardians. The wonders would never cease, and there was no point in being surprised by them now. That was what that look said. The one that followed it, however, made it evident she was wondering if this vehicle _could_ handle the weight that Korg presented.

“Perhaps it would be best to send for a second one of these crafts.” Thor offered, giving her a smile. “I’m not entirely sure what Korg weighs, but Bruce has a good point. With the weight of the other Asgardians, it may be a bit much for just one.”

By the time they arrived in the field that was to serve as a landing station for the escape pod, Okoye had called for another _two_ hovercrafts. The discussion had turned from Korg’s weight, to the weight of the average Asgardian, to an understanding of why it was best that they add additional vehicles to their convoy. Better safe than sorry, Bruce had said, and Thor was inclined to agree. The easier they made things for both his people and Wakanda’s, the better.

It was shortly after they’d arrived that Thor heard the telltale sound of a space craft not far off. Okoye was listening as well, standing ramrod straight with her face turned in the direction the sound was coming from. The sky was heavy with clouds, today, and Thor knew that even if the hadn’t opened and poured rain and lightning down on Wakanda, they were likely to be his fault. No matter that his people were safe and soon to be on Earth, and Loki was within reach with a few correct movements made here and there; what had happened had happened, and it did not take the weight of guilt or grief from his shoulders. Not entirely. The cloud cover was reminder of that, and Thor suspected it didn’t make things very easy for Brunnhilde to navigate.

Despite that, when the pod came out from between the clouds, Thor couldn’t help the smile that broke across his face. That was the _Statesman_ ’s escape pod. His people were on it, and his friends, what was left of both. Not everything had been lost, and, perhaps, this could be a sign that they could reverse what had happened.

The pod landed carefully and lightly, and Thor held himself from charging across the field to the door. He managed to keep himself to a half-jog, Bruce and Okoye following behind, ready to assist however they could.

The pod wasn’t large, but when the doors were opened, and the short ramp deployed to the ground, Thor was relieved to see that many Asgardians still crowded the exit. He was relieved that the first thing they saw, after arriving on a foreign planet having survived the destruction of their home, the attack on their refuge, and the disappearance of half their number, was their king. Something familiar, though he still felt the guilt of what he had not managed to do.

He had not managed to protect his people from everything they had endured since escaping Asgard. His first few weeks as their king were not off to a grand start. It didn’t stop them from greeting him with smiles, clasped hands and, in more than a few cases, embraces. The Asgardians filed out of the pod, one by one, women and children, and the few men Thor had been able to persuade, with help from Loki and Brunnhilde, to go. Familiar faces after the long days in the _Statesman_ , and all, it seemed, glad to be on the ground again.

Okoye did not rush them. She didn’t order anyone onto the crafts, and she deferred to Thor. Bruce helped with answering questions, and situating people, and it wasn’t long before they were making their way to the vehicles themselves. They had spent weeks on various spaceships; the people needed rest in proper beds, and they were ready to be taken to them.

Once he’d finished greeting Korg – whom Okoye had regarded with open curiosity – Thor felt a hand on his upper arm, and then his opposite shoulder, and then around his neck, dragging him into a tight embrace.

Brunnhilde.

Thor hugged her back, pulling her body against his, and letting her squeeze as tightly as she needed. They had been through a lot, and she had needed to be strong for the people, without knowing what had become of the king she had pledged herself to. She’d had to fold away her dignity and follow the order he’d given her to _run_ , and Thor had known how much that had stung.

He’d needed her to do this, though, and now, in recognition of that, he murmured, “you did far beyond what I asked. Thank you.”

                                                

 


	6. Chapter 6

Turning tail and running wasn’t something Brunnhilde had seen herself doing so soon after finally accepting that running away from her problems wasn’t going to make them go away. Running away from Thanos and the Black Order wasn’t going to make that threat disappear, and she’d known that, argued that, while Thor had been telling her what he wanted her to do. What he _needed_ her to do.

“Send Korg!” she’d countered, and it had done nothing. Thor had simply agreed, and sent Korg with her, and their people. He’d assured her they would be fine, but she needed to get as many of their people on that pod as possible. She needed to get as many of them as possible as far away as they could.

It was the order of her king. Not only him, but the order of his consort, who had looked pale as a sheet as he’d worked to hold defences up around the ship with his magic. Brunnhilde could not and would not disobey. Not again.

As much as it had felt like a knife in her gut, she had done as Thor had asked. As Loki had demanded, backing up his king’s plea. She had taken Korg, and, in the end, half of the Asgardians, and they had gotten away from the _Statesman_ , setting a course for Earth. Terra. Midgard.

One of the nights they’d spent on the _Statesman_ , Brunnhilde had offered Loki a drink. Just one, and only the two of them, while Thor rested. They both knew damn well that he was spending almost every waking hour with the people, making sure they were happy and healthy, or, as good as to be expected. Assuring them they were going to find a new home, thanking them for their understanding and patience. He was working on rations, and entertainment, and working hard at being the king that Asgard needed. When he was able, he needed to rest, and Brunnhilde had known, that night, that Loki had been the one to make that decision for him.

It was surprising, in a way, to have found out what the relationship between Thor and Loki was truly like, but Brunnhilde hadn’t been bothered, much. She had kept something of an eye on Asgard for a few hundred years after she’d left. She had heard of the defeat of Jötunnheim, and then, not long after, the new prince’s birth. She hadn’t known, then, that something was suspect, or she’d been so lost in a drunken haze that she’d missed the announcement of the queen’s pregnancy. She’d been speaking to the wrong travellers, or maybe the pregnancy had been tense and rocky due to the war, and no announcement had been made.

Brunnhilde hadn’t known then. She hadn’t much cared.

But, now, back in the service of the king of Asgard, she knew, and she cared, but only so much that Loki wasn’t keeping their king from getting some rest because he desperately needed his attention after a few long years of fighting, tension, betrayal and upset between them. She suspected it was the same for the refugees of Asgard. The few who she’d heard speaking of it had only said that it was to be expected, and, considering Loki had been brought to Asgard from Jötunnheim, perhaps it had always been Odin’s plan.

The night she’d drank with Loki, she had learned more. Maybe more than she’d wanted to learn, but she, like Heimdall, was made a keeper of their secrets, and, in turn, come to understand the two of them better. Thor was more of an open book to her, but Loki had his secrets, and he’d guarded them closely.

Not so much, that night, and one of them had followed her, every night she’d laid down for a few hours rest on that escape pod.

Loki understood why she’d run away. He’d understood why she’d hid. When he had left Asgard after finding out the true of his parentage, he’d said, there was someone who he’d fallen in with, and worked for, who he now prayed never found him. He would have kept running if he hadn’t been able to hide as Odin, but, now, Thor was inspiring him, the same as he’d done for Brunnhilde. There was no need to run and hide when they could face their fears, their demons, and come out on the other side of it victorious.

Seeing her king in the field on Midgard that day, the first day they had been off a ship of some kind in weeks, Brunnhilde suspected that Loki hadn’t entirely been right. Facing their demons may not always end in victory, as it had for her with the losses she’d suffered, and the fear of Hela she’d carried for centuries.

Thor no longer had his eye patch, but the bigger change in him was the empty space at his side that should have been filled by his brother.

She hadn’t focused on that, at first. She hadn’t been able to, only needing to assure herself that he _was_ alive, not an illusion, or turned to ash like half the pod had been, suddenly, the day before. She had needed to hear his voice, even if it had broken something in her, and allowed her to cry, for a few seconds.

“Can we speak?” she asked, finally, when she’d pulled back from his embrace, and swiped harshly at her eyes. “I don’t know that you will think I have done such a great job when you find out everything that’s happened.”

Thor nodded, and, after speaking with a woman that, on sight, Brunnhilde recognized as a warrior and leader, he gestured for the two of them to take a walk.

“Okoye is looking forward to properly meeting you. She is the leader of the Dora Milaje here in Wakanda. They remind me of the Valkyrie. An elite fighting force, made up of women. They protect the throne.” Brunnhilde could feel Thor regarding her, very obviously trying to gauge what she was thinking and feeling. “She, too, is feeling like she somehow failed in her duties. Which, I hope you both realize, you _haven’t_.”

Brunnhilde opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again to argue. “I don’t think I’ve failed in my duties to protect the throne _entirely_. But what you asked of me? Half of the people turned to ashes yesterday. There was nothing I could do to stop it, and I _know_ what that must mean, so I _know_ it isn’t my fault. Not entirely. But, if I had insisted on staying, maybe I could have been a help to you. Maybe I could have helped you stop him.”

Turning, finally, she regarded Thor, and then the space beside him. “And you’re wrong. I failed in at least part of my duty. The Valkyrie are sworn to protect the throne, and _yours_ was not a seat you held alone.”

The sadness in Thor’s face was immediate. How many losses would her king have to endure, when he was so new to his title he didn’t even have a physical kingdom, or a proper throne, to hold against it?

“Who still lives?”

Thor gestured for Brunnhilde to follow, not speaking a word. They walked for a while, the hovercrafts dots on the plains ahead of them, moving towards a city that rose on the horizon. Thor took his time, walking with her over grassy hills, and into thick trees. There were signs here, that something had happened. A battle had been waged in these fields, blood had been spilled.

When Thor did finally speak, his voice was quiet, and flat. He recounted what had happened after he’d ordered her off the _Statesman_ , the death of Heimdall, the death of Loki. For the first time, Brunnhilde witnessed her king cry, though he did it quietly, privately, without paying heed to her witnessing it at his side. He detailed meeting with a group who called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy, and explained that it was one of their members that she’d spoken to when she’d finally been able to hail a frequency on Earth.

He told her of his quest to Nidavellir, making her heart clench in her chest at the recounting of how he’d taken the force of a star to forge his new axe.

And then he’d told her of the Battle of Wakanda. Fighting Thanos, and nearly killing him.

Nearly.

The guilt that Thor was carrying over his failed attempt on Thanos’ life was obvious, and, while they had been speaking, Brunnhilde hadn’t been able to ignore the fact that the clouds above them were getting darker and heavier. They seemed ready to break apart in cracks of lightning and thunder at any moment, and wash away all the evidence that any battle had happened here. The fact that they hadn’t amazed her. Thor was keeping his grief, guilt and pain in check in a way she admired.

Perhaps that was helped because there _was_ a plan. Something, at least, to try and reverse what had happened here yesterday, and correct the imbalance Thanos had brought to the universe in his quest to create the opposite.

“I’ll help with whatever you need.” She promised, as they left the trees, still walking towards the city. It was good to stretch her legs, and get to talk to Thor. By now, the Asgardians would be getting situated in the place where they were to stay for now. They would be getting proper enough beds, and something to eat. They were safe, and she had done what her king asked of her, despite the odds being stacked against them all. Now, she needed to help him in what came next.

“I’m glad to hear it, because what I’m about to ask may test your knowledge to its limits.” Thor answered, slowing in his steps. There was a hesitance to him, something that pulled her to a stop, eyes narrowing while she looked him over. “Loki’s not dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, he’s dead. But he’s not. I’ve seen him twice since the _Statesman_.”

Brunnhilde paused, waiting for Thor to say more. When he didn’t, she shook her head. “I know you’re grieving, and you’ve been put through things no one, not even a god, should be expected to take in that short of succession...” She frowned. “ _Why_ are you smiling? Please, don’t tell me you’ve gone mad. We’re going to be shit out of luck if _you_ have gone mad.”

“It’s good to be able to talk about this. And for you to say exactly what I expected you were going to say, because I _know_ it sounds as though I’ve gone mad, but I haven’t. Loki is dead, but he hasn’t passed to Valhalla or Helheim. He’s floating in Limbo. With Hela.”

Brunnhilde crossed her arms, both for something to do with them, and as a brace against what he was saying. “You still sound mad.”

“I know. Trust me, I know I sound mad, because I’ve been going over and over it in my head all morning, and I can’t help but wonder if I am going mad. But, I think, if I was, my mind wouldn’t have been so cruel as to have him taken away from me by Hela while he was using his magic to enter my memories and dreams.”

Brunnhilde wanted to believe Thor was in his right mind, and if she wanted to, it would be simple to convince herself. Despite what he’d suffered, it was obvious that the stress of it was manifesting itself in more of a suicide mission type of way than a hallucinating his lover type of way. Not only that, but she had been victim to Loki entering into and prying out her memories. It was something she wouldn’t soon forget, and the fact that he’d used that to reach Thor from Limbo...

“All right. Suppose I believe you, and Loki, who truly seems to be a favourite of the Fates, has managed to somehow dig in his heels and be kept from both Valhalla, which he has earned, and Helheim, which would be a respite from what the universe has become.” She began, noting the way hope lit in Thor’s eyes. “Why would that test my knowledge? He’s with Hela. All I know of her was that she was bloodthirsty until the end, and she resented being banished.”

Thor nodded, clearly finding the words she was saying to be exactly what he’d wanted to hear. “You’ve dealt with her before, which is fine. Would she make a pact with Loki to promise him resurrection if he and I do what she wants?”

Brunnhilde felt the pit of her stomach drop away, and uncrossed her arms, reaching for Thor’s shoulder. “I know you love him and you miss him, but you cannot trust--”

“--That’s the thing. We don’t.”

Those words were a relief, and Brunnhilde sighed, putting both hands on Thor’s shoulders and leaning against him, looking over his face. He didn’t _look_ mad. He looked hopeful. Tired. Sad. Determined.

But not mad.

“What does she want?”

Thor explained. It didn’t surprise her. Hela had always wanted to rule and, now that she was _dead_ , what she had to rule was what was given to her. Helheim was what she had left, and it was being toyed with by a madman. If it was all she had left, thanks to what Thor had done with their help, she was going to want to protect that, and she would bank on Thor’s love for his brother to get it. To Brunnhilde, it seemed Hela believed Thor owed her the realm she had been promised dominion over, and if he made sure she got it back, he could have Loki again.

That was all well and good, but trusting Hela, the figure that had haunted her memories for centuries, the Goddess who had killed her own lover, was far beyond something Brunnhilde wanted to do. Ever.

“You want to know if there’s a way to get Loki out of Limbo without having to have it be at _her_ mercy and discretion.”

The truth had been easy enough to suss out, and when Thor nodded, Brunnhilde mirrored it, pacing, with her arms folded and her head down, thinking about it. She had been alive longer than her king, and she had seen the things Hela could do first hand. It wasn’t simply that, though, and she knew that those weren’t the only reasons Thor had come to her for advice.

True, she was his advisor, and his friend. She was Asgardian, and she, better than any of his Midgardian friends, would understand what it meant to say that the God of Mischief was stuck in Limbo at the Mercy of the Goddess of Death, but could be returned to life from that plane of existence if _her_ terms were met.

But she was also a Valkyrie. She had spent centuries of her life ferrying the dead between the nine realms, Limbo, and Valhalla. She knew rumours and theories that had died off long before Thor was toddling around his royal nursery.

“You need another option.”

“I need a Plan B.”

Brunnhilde smiled. “I think having your brother and his tricks around may just be an asset in this fight. I don’t want to make any promises.” Turning around, she regarded Thor. The battle-worn king, whose lover she once drank with for hours simply so he could rest, clearly foregoing that now, and holding out hope for this one small thing that might make the task ahead of him that much more bearable.

By extension of that, it would make things easier for her. For everyone. They would need all the help they could get in the war that was to come. Despite how things had started, Brunnhilde counted Loki as a friend. It would be good to have him back.

“There may be another way.” She said, finally. “But we will have to leave Wakanda.”

 

 

 

The rest of the survivors – Thor hesitated to call them Avengers; somehow, it felt wrong – weren’t altogether thrilled with the turn of events that Thor was proposing to them. The issue was, however, they were dead in the water. Stalled, until they could move on something, try something else. There was very little for them to do but wait, and help where needed.

It was understandable that not everyone was on board with the fact that Thor was leaving, but Thor had known that there was a good chance that, if he was _honest_ about why he was leaving, there would be an argument. An uproar. Someone would try to change his mind and stop him. In the end, it wasn’t that he was lying to them, it was that he wasn’t telling them the whole truth. What he was telling them was that he and Brunnhilde were going to follow a lead for something that could help them in the battle that was to come. There had been no denying that skepticism made itself known in some of them. Steve knew Thor well enough, now, that he accepted it with a quiet sigh and nod. Okoye had given him a searching look that seemed to want to ask more, though she was unsure how. Bruce had looked confused, squinting at Thor from across the room.

But none of them had asked him for further details. He and Brunnhilde were Asgardian. They were not simply _from_ Earth, and the resources and leads they needed or wanted to follow could come to them from far beyond the borders of Wakanda, or even the atmosphere of this planet. Perhaps, really, they were too caught up in their shock and grief to want to bother digging into the business of the God of Thunder.

Whatever the case was, Thor’s announcement that he was going to be going for a time seemed to be the kick in the ass that some of them had needed. Steve had found his feet, and announced they should be looking into reaching out to other enhanced persons, ex-SHIELD agents and other allies that they had around the globe, to see where they could help. Once Tony arrived in Wakanda, he could help Shuri – hopefully – and with luck between herself, Bruce and Tony they may be able to come up with a plan of action that involved a reliable way to track Thanos through the energy signature the Stones gave off. Past that, however, they weren’t being of much use. The Wakandans had been efficient in their own emergency response, and taking care of their people and the needs they had. The Avengers were only taking up space and sitting on their hands, waiting to be told what to do next.

They could be of use out in the world, and they would.

Thor was buoyed by that response. Little by little, his friends were coming back to themselves, making plans and following them. He understood that, because he felt the same. Loki’s visit, and Brunnhilde’s admission that she knew a way they might be able to reach him had struck the match deep in his chest again.

Perhaps bringing Loki back would not undo everything. It would not reverse the snap, it did not save half their people, it did not bring back Heimdall. But it was something. It was a start. It was Loki, who had abilities and power that could be useful in the final fight, a cunning mind that Thor was eager to have on their side, and a propensity for vengeance that could prove to be a most deadly weapon in the fight to kill Thanos and undo everything he’d done with the Stones.

And it would soothe the ache in Thor’s chest that persisted, despite knowing that Loki was not truly beyond contact. Even now, Thor knew, there was a chance that Loki was watching him, standing with him, commenting on the choices he was making like his commentary was heard or welcome. The same as he would have been, were he still in this world.

With luck, that was.

Brunnhilde had pointed out what Thor had already feared. Loki was in a bargain with Hela, and Hela had pulled him back, out of where he’d hidden himself in Thor’s consciousness. It didn’t take a very dynamic stretch of imagination to work out that Hela wouldn’t have been happy about Loki going behind her back to speak with him. To, essentially, warn him.

So, really, who knew what state Loki was in? If he was free enough to be at Thor’s side, separated by the veil, or if Hela was imprisoning him?

That was the real challenge, here. Leave alone what Brunnhilde had described to him as the only viable Plan B they had, _if_ it worked, there was still Hela to get around.

And she didn’t move aside easily. Thor had only known of her for a few days, and he knew that much to be true.

It was something he was choosing not to dwell on, while they settled themselves into one of the quinjets that had been made ready for them. They weren’t taking much. Small packs with some food and water if necessary.

And their tag-along.

“You aren’t tellin’ the whole truth to everyone back there, are ya?”

Setting his bag down in one of the bins built into the side of the jet, Thor glanced at the rear ramp of the quinjet, making sure it was folding, locking itself into place before he answered. “No, Rabbit. I’m not.”

Brunnhilde looked over from where she was settling in at the controls, one eyebrow raised in question. They had both known, even if they hadn’t discussed it, that Rocket coming along had meant he would need to be informed of what it was they were truly getting at. Perhaps Brunnhilde had thought Thor was going to leave the explanation to when they were leaving Wakanda. In truth, Thor had thought he would leave it alone until such a time when Rocket chose to ask.

He should have known it would be before they were even in the air.

“Let’s get in the air, and then we’ll go over what it is that I plan to do. That sound all right?”

Smiling, Thor gestured to one of the other seats at the head of the jet, offering it to his newest friend. Rocket gave him a look that was dripping suspicion, far beyond anything he’d received when he’d announced his intentions, but he didn’t argue. That, Thor knew, was a sign of trust, and while Rocket strapped himself into the seat, Thor made his way to stand behind Brunnhilde, giving her a nod that said he was ready.

She knew where they needed to go. He was trusting the plan she was putting forward.

And telling himself if it didn’t work, he would be all right. He would keep trying.

There was too much to risk by putting everything to hope. Fate did not bend to hope.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Loki had no idea what Thor was planning, or what he was trusting, but he hoped it was good.

Part of regaining Hela’s trust had meant being agreeable with her. Not too agreeable because, as she’d already said, that made it far too obvious that he wasn’t acting with the intentions that she wanted. He wasn’t playing along.

In order to keep her from making any moves that may put him permanently beyond Thor’s reach, playing along was exactly what Loki needed to do, and he was doing it well, right now.

He thought, anyway.

Playing along meant that he needed to keep Hela away from Thor. No, he didn’t know the extent of her abilities, here, and what she may or may not be able to keep an eye on, but he’d gathered a few things. One, if she didn’t know where someone was in the universe, she needed to move along the veil until it became obvious, or she found a clue to attempt and unravel their location. Two, she may have a grudge against Thor for everything he had masterminded in defeating her, but she knew he was their best chance at defeating Thanos so she could have Helheim left to her _properly_ , the way it was meant to be without the Titan’s interference. Three, she expected Loki to ensure that Thor both stayed alive and made sure that, whether by his hand or not, Thanos met his end.

It was knowing all of those things that had given Loki his idea, and, so far, he felt like it was working out.

“Why would he go back there? It would be like me sitting with the imploded ruins of Asgard and reminiscing on what could have been. It’s hardly a nice place to settle down after completing your universe-destroying goals.”

Loki sighed, turning away from the Chitauri he’d been watching to the evil step-sister he’d never expected to encounter.

“That’s precisely why. You wouldn’t do it. Neither would I. But Thanos is... When I knew him,” here, Loki rolled his eyes, knowing that _knowing_ someone did not always come from having been tortured by them under the lie of having been saved, “he seemed to have this idyllic attachment to Titan. It was his home, and it had been destroyed because no one had listened to _him_ , and put in place _his_ ideas. Honestly, if you ask me, he’s attached to it an entirely unhealthy amount. But think about it. The Black Order is dead... From what I can tell.”

Hela, perched on a rock with the expanse of space behind her, gave him a flat look. “They should be in Hel. I haven’t checked.”

Loki smiled, feigning sweetness. “You can pop off now to check, if you’d like.”

Hela’s smile was just as fake as his own. “Not on your bargained life, little brother. I do that, and I’ll come back to you elbow-deep in Thor’s mind again, scheming with him instead of holding up your end of the pact we agreed to.”

“You’re not _wrong_ , but I resent the fact that you just said it so _bluntly_.”

They didn’t _trust_ each other. Not fully. But, here and there, Loki could see glimpses of a person that Hela could have been if it hadn’t been for the madness. Traces of the person he’d been in danger of losing in himself, if it hadn’t been for Thor. It made it easier to be around her. Simpler to continue this ruse of leading her along to keep her from catching on to anything Thor might do.

Loki didn’t know how long he could keep himself from his brother’s side, even if it was only to observe him from this side, but, for now, he had to try.

“Besides. I know the location of most of his strongholds and ships. I wasn’t entirely unaware while I was with him.” Loki continued, turning back to check on the Chitauri. They had nothing they could give them. No information, no hints. But it had been a space to check while he bought Thor time.

“So you’ve always been a little snake, is what you’re saying?”

There was, surprisingly, very little bite in Hela’s tone. The news that Loki had managed to get actual _usable_ information from Thanos while he’d been more or less enslaved to the Titan had been, apparently, welcome.

“In my way.” Loki admitted, turning back towards her, and surveying the way she was surveying him.

There was no harm in admitting to himself that they would have gotten along in another life. They had many of the same traits and ways of thinking, but they were different enough. Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine that when he’d found out his true parentage and gone a bit mad, working to discredit Thor and show Odin that _he_ was the heir who should be ascended first, Odin had seen Hela. Her madness, her lust for power and domination. It didn’t absolve him of the things he’d done, but Loki could see it.

Which was why it was making this seem far too easy. Hela should have caught on, by now, that he was up to _something_. He was leading them on something of a wild goose chase, and giving Thor time to thwart _her_ if he could work out a way to do it. If it had been him in Hela’s place, he wouldn’t have given an inch. No searching for Thanos, no wandering the cosmos, nailing down coordinates that Loki was pulling up as possibilities.

At the same time, revenge was a powerful motivator. Thanos was screwing with her only remaining birthright. Maybe finding him was too strong of a siren call to ignore.

“After what had happened on Asgard, I wasn’t going to be completely at the mercy of the person who had pulled me from the wormhole. I didn’t have much choice, mind you. Torture, and all.” Loki kept his tone light, not meeting Hela’s eyes. _That_ was something he hadn’t even had time to go over with Thor. He certainly wasn’t about to have a heart to heart about it with his murderous step-sister while he was distracting her. “But I logged some things away. Things that are proving useful now. You’re welcome.”

Hela returned Loki’s tight, forced smile, pushing off the rock that she’d been leaning against. “If you’re trying to make me feel sorry for you...”

“Hardly.” Loki answered, quick and hard, no room for doubt. “I’m just trying to point out that I managed that _while_ Thanos was torturing me and brainwashing me into being his little Tesseract-fetching puppet. That’s all. Shall we continue?”

Continuing meant attempting to get to Titan. Travel, with Hela, was odd. Loki had noticed that it wasn’t as slow as when he was living, but, rather, it was more like being in the wormhole all over again. Things went by quickly, but he felt like he wasn’t really moving. It wasn’t instant, it wasn’t opening a portal in one area of the universe and stepping out into another. Loki had no doubt she would be capable of that, given the fact that she had been there when he’d woken up in the wreckage of the _Statesman_ , but they weren’t going with that option. Perhaps this was Hela’s idea of torture. Perhaps it was a way for her to feel like she was keeping _him_ in line.

Whatever it was, it was slow enough that when Loki heard his name, they hadn’t moved far from the Chitauri outpost. He turned, quick, suspicious, looking back at the weird, warped path they were walking. There was no one behind them. No one had been in front of them.

_Loki._

There it was again. Loki tensed, listening, trying to pinpoint the voice. It was familiar.

“Do you hear that?”

Hela was standing still, watching him like a hawk, suspicion clear as day on her face.

“Hear what.”

It wasn’t a question. Her tones were ice cold.

_Loki_.

With a jolt, he understood.

_Loki, I know you can hear me, bastard. Answer._

The voice was familiar. Huskier, maybe, but very familiar.

It sounded not like it was coming from outside him, but from deep in his chest, resonating outwards like a microphone in an echo chamber.

And the reason Hela couldn’t hear it was because she wasn’t meant to.

It was Brunnhilde. Thor had found a Plan B.

 

 

 

The place they had come to wasn’t unknown to Thor, but Brunnhilde wasn’t particularly hung up on that. Not right now. It wouldn’t pay for her to be, and Thor, after acknowledging her with a quiet ‘I know this place’ had seemed happy to let it lie.

Many of them knew this place. The Midgardians weren’t so far off track when they said it was a former Viking site, that it landed somewhere between the residence of a chief and a pagan temple. These were things that Brunnhilde hadn’t much bothered to keep an eye on, during her self-imposed exile, but since the _Statesman_ , and particularly since Thor had asked her to help him find a Plan B, she had been reacquainting herself with places that she’d known, once in the past.

Hofsstaðir was one of those places. In the past, it had been a place for drinking and celebrating, and it had stayed as such, even long after she’d gone away, herself. Now, nestled amongst rolling hills leading into mountains, and cradled by damp, close air, those memories were hard to ignore. What it had been, what it was now; both were blurring together in her mind’s eye, but she couldn’t take the time to unravel that.

With any luck, it would be useful. She could use whatever ties to the past she had, right now. It had been centuries since she had even attempted this sort of thing, and there was no telling if it would even work.

That wasn’t entirely self-doubt.

Thor was convinced, steadfast in his belief, that Loki was still alive, his soul was still moving between this realm and the next. He’d been visited by him, more than once, and he’d been told that Hela was to blame for the fact that he _hadn’t_ moved on to Valhalla.

Despite everything she knew of him before, Brunnhilde knew Valhalla was where Loki should have found himself. The fact that he hadn’t _did_ lent credence to the story Thor was telling her. That, and the Hela Brunnhilde knew would not have passed on a chance for revenge, to extract what she so desperately wanted through whatever means she could. She was confined to the realms beyond, now, and barred from Valhalla, as it was not her kingdom to rule in death, but she would see herself as slighted. What Thanos had done had robbed her, after she’d been so recently robbed by family who hadn’t even known she existed for much of their lives.

It was a believable story, and Thor seemed, despite everything, in as right of a mind as could be expected.

And he was, now, her king. Not because of obligation, but because of trust and friendship.

It was that trust that she used to motivate her, now. They had hiked for a while, herself, Thor and the raccoon, into the foothills outside the settlement. A little closer to the sky, where she could feel the past singing to her. Past revelries, rituals, celebrations of life and of death. The further they went, the more she gave herself over to memories and abilities she had long left forgotten, drowned in alcohol, far away where she would be safe from them.

This wasn’t something she could do for her beloved. Settling among the long, soft grass, she acknowledged that with considerably less sadness than she’d always thought she would, if she needed to do this.

The one she’d loved, who had fallen with Hela’s blade to protect Brunnhilde, was in Valhalla, now. She was among the brave, and she would live forever. Once, that had seemed a small comfort, something flimsy that only served to numb the moments between bottles. Now, with clarity, it felt like more. Warmth and closure, feelings that had silent tears leaving tracks on her cheeks while the wind blew her hair forward, as if to hide them.

Looking at Thor, her king, but more than that, her friend, she knew he couldn’t have that same peace over the death of the one he loved.

The one he loved was, in all likelihood, stuck. Not here, not in Valhalla, not even in Hel.

With a deep breath, Brunnhilde relaxed her shoulders, and reached back into her memories, calling forward the gifts of a Valkyrie that she had been too afraid to use for far too long.

The Valkyrie were sworn to protect the throne, but they had also been sworn to protect Valhalla, and ferry the souls of the dead to their final resting places.

This was a rocky plan at best, she herself had never ferried a soul from Limbo back to the realm of the living.

But there was a first time for everything.

Reaching out, with her mind and her soul, Brunnhilde put all doubt aside. Doubt in herself, doubt in Thor’s belief, doubt in her ability to go toe-to-toe with the Goddess of Death and pry her prize from her claws. She put it aside, and reached into the beyond, seeking that one soul.

_Loki_.

 

 

 

“I thought we’d been over this. I thought you had decided to play along and be a good little bargaining chip.”

Hela’s fingers were tight on his wrist, squeezing in a way that, were they alive, would have left him with bruises. Brunnhilde’s voice had been ringing in his head, distracting him with its urgency and impossibility, and those few seconds had been all Hela had needed. Loki had answered, aloud, with the Valkyrie’s name, and she’d pounced.

So soon after fighting for his life and losing against the Titan, in order to save Thor, he was doing the same against the Goddess of Death, but the stakes were different, this time.

Should things go wrong, he could be cast into Hel. No more spying on Thor, no more freedom to roam the realms as a shade. No Valhalla when Thor was finally able to rest. Hela would take him and make him into the only prize she would win in this fight, should everything stay as it was.

That was something Loki simply couldn’t give in to. Not anymore.

So, he’d fought. She’d lunged at him, and he’d thrown himself to the side, ducked around her and summoned his dagger. Just one. It was the same mistake he’d made with Thanos, but now, he and Hela were locked in a position where that blade prodded the underside of her ribs, and hers rested dangerously close to his chin, and his free hand was in her grasp.

“I had, but I believe you forgot my propensity for _lies_.”

Hela’s lips curved in a smile Loki couldn’t help but think looked amused. The situation was far from funny, and he knew he was standing on a knife’s edge, but it didn’t stop him from returning it.

_Loki_.

There she was again. The first few times he’d heard his name, it had been distant, and weak, and almost as though Brunnhilde lacked conviction. As though there was a doubt in her mind that this had worked. Just before he’d answered her, he’d heard those convictions get stronger, though, her searching seeming having turned into simple _finding_ , and knowing he was there.

Now, when she was saying his name, it was nearly impatient.

And he could have sworn he could feel her feeling for him, like she was reaching across the universe to grab him by the collar and pull him back.

“I didn’t. I should have _known_ that oaf wouldn’t let us be, and simply handle things, once you’d hopped into bed and whispered all my plans in his ear.” Hela’s grip on his wrist stayed, but she banished her blade, and relaxed her stance. Loki suspected it was meant to disarm him, and didn’t move the dagger from her side, not even when she glanced down at it with a dismissive look. “But I thought you would play along with the pact we made. I assume he’s having that Valkyrie call you from the ether, isn’t he? That’s the voice you’re hearing. The thing I cannot hear.”

There was no point in lying to Hela, but Loki didn’t nod to confirm her suspicions, either.

“We don’t have time for your little games, _brother_. The longer that madman has the stones and control of their abilities, the harder it is for me to believe I will get the things you promised me. Clearly, our agreement left too much wiggle room for a snake like you. So, let’s make a new one.”

Loki couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “A new one? You idiot. There is a Valkyrie calling for me, at this moment, and the longer I make her wait -” _Loki, stop playing around, I’ve found you. Focus, reach, take my hand. You absolute ass._ “- the angrier she gets. Not exactly a good recipe. And you know Thor, now. He’s tried this once. She _found_ me. He won’t give up. There is no _bargain_ we get to make, here.”

The fingers on his wrist squeezed impossibly tight, Hela wrenching his arm up, and Loki dropped his dagger, reaching to grab her wrist in return, and pull her off. It was no use. Here, he was a shade. She was still the Goddess of Death, and would not let go if she did not want to. Still, it didn’t stop him, pulling at her fingers while she spoke.

“We had a deal.”

“The deal was that Thanos is defeated. What he’s done is reversed. _You_ get the souls promised to you at their right time.” Loki pushed forward, throwing Hela off balance, and wrenching himself from her grasp. Backpedalling, he put yards between them, reaching himself. _Brunnhilde. Come collect_. “You’re more mad than I thought if you think that isn’t something I’ll pursue when I’m gone. I don’t trust you. I’m not looking to make deals with you. But I will uphold that.”

Hela was angry. Betrayed. Defeated in her goals, again.

But she was smiling, and Loki couldn’t sort out why, until he felt it. Around the opposite wrist, and then his ankles, like a bind. Something keeping him from moving any further.

His other wrist, the one she’d been squeezing, felt surprisingly warm, almost in a comforting way, if he’d been able to focus on it.

“I could cast you into Hel, right now. No Thor. No Valkyrie who could pull you from it. Ever. I will. Or we can make a new bargain.”

The binds on him lurched downwards, and for a moment everything went black, the warmth that had been spreading up his other warm slipped, barely clinging to his fingertips.

“Fine, _fine_!”

The binds loosened. Hela moved closer. Loki reached for Brunnhilde, not truly listening to her voice in his head, urging him to hold on, that she had him now.

“You defeat Thanos. Not for me, of course, I understand you have a grudge or two with him. Your death being... chief among those.” She smiled. “Thanos dies. At your hand, or Thor’s, I don’t much care. What he had done is undone. But should Thor fall in the process of that defeat? You are mine. You come to Hel. You died to save him once, and Thanos did what he did. This time, you keep him alive, _and_ Thanos meets his end? You two can have your odd little happily ever after.”

Loki shook his head. “No. I won’t let you take a claim on--”

“-- _You_ are breaking our bargain, snake. This seems a small price to pay. To me, anyway. I have to watch and wait and hope you all don’t mess it up again, and you expect me to do that without collateral?”

Loki paused. “Truly? Yes.”

Another pull. Another slip of the warmth that had nearly reached his shoulder. Another glimpse of black.

“I’ll ask again--”

“--You don’t have to!” Loki snapped. This wasn’t the way he’d pictured this. If Thor found a Plan B, he would be whisked away, Hela would be powerless to stop it, and the consequences would be damned. He and Thor would be together again, and Thanos would have hel to pay when their wrath found him. Instead, he was stuck in an inter-realm tug-of-war between the Goddess of Death and a Formerly Alcoholic Valkyrie, having to make unfair deals if he wanted to breathe air and feel Thor’s arms around him again.

_I’ve almost got you..._

Brunnhilde didn’t sound exactly _confident_. Hela was stopping her. She was pulling his soul towards Hel, while Brunnhilde tried to pull it towards Midgard. They were at an impasse.

“Done. It’s a deal, you hag.”

Hela laughed. “Hag. That’s sweet.” Her fingers found his wrist again, and as they did, the bonds loosened. Brunnhilde’s pull got infinitely stronger. The skin under Hela’s fingers tingled.

“If Thor falls, and Thanos is undefeated, you will go to Hel.”

Loki nodded.

“I’ll go to Hel.”

“Well then.” Hela smiled, and released him. “I’ll be seeing you later, little brother. Try not to disappoint me.”

Loki couldn’t have given her a retort, even if he’d tried. Brunnhilde had him, and he was holding tight to her. Hela was fading from view, and the warmth that had been struggling to encompass just his arm was spreading, engulfing him, washing over him while he closed his eyes.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Thor had known this was a long shot. He’d known that it may take a while, and that it may turn up that they couldn’t reach Loki, or, worse, he wouldn’t be able to be reached because Thor truly _was_ losing his grasp on reality, and Loki was dead and gone and wouldn’t be coming back.

He hadn’t voiced any of that. It seemed disrespectful to, while they were heading to do something Brunnhilde had kept from doing for centuries. And speaking it out loud felt like he was giving it power. He needed to remain strong in the conviction that Loki was there, and Loki could be saved, and brought back to them.

Fate could not be so cruel, could not hate him _so much_ , that he would be given this hope, only to have it dashed against the rocks.

That was what sustained him. That, and his belief in Brunnhilde, her abilities, and her willingness to _try_. She had not once let him down yet, and he had, admittedly, charged her with things that were difficult, and that she could have broken under, or run away from. The fact that she hadn’t was a testimony to her strength of will and of heart, and Thor wasn’t going to let his anxiety unseat his faith in that.

But when they were edging on an hour of attempting this process, and Brunnhilde was still reaching out, reaching into the ether for Loki with no luck, and no hint that she was finding his soul out in the universe, there was no way for him to deny he was losing some faith in his own sanity. There was a very good chance, the longer this went on, that he was lost to his grief, and had been enduring wildly intricate and intimate fantasies wherein Loki still existed in a place he could be rescued from. That was something Thor had known to be possible, but he hadn’t let himself believe it would become exactly that.

Reality.

Something Thor had never feared, but which was threatening to come crashing down over him again with the kind of finality that could only come with having Loki ripped from him twice in a matter of days, after he’d just gotten him back.

“Listen, uh...”

Rocket’s voice was quiet. It was obvious he was trying not to disturb Brunnhilde, and Thor appreciated that, but it didn’t stop him from his kneejerk reaction of turning and gesturing for the other to keep quiet. Rocket gave him a look that warned of thin patience, and then continued. A quick glance while he spoke confirmed that Brunnhilde wasn’t being distracted by his voice, and Thor listened in, paying attention to what was being said.

“If this doesn’t work. Dead brother, all over again. And, I mean, I know you aren’t saying much, but I’m getting the vibe that there’s something more going on there. Which is weird, I’m not going to pretend it’s not, but, hey.” Rocket put up his tiny paws in a gesture that made it obvious he was shrugging off whatever the complication was between Thor and Loki. “Not my issue. I’ve got my own weird shit to deal with. The thing is, though, uh... This doesn’t work? She can’t find him? This ain’t gonna break you, is it?”

Thor glanced back at Brunnhilde. He could have sworn he saw her twitch, but she didn’t seem to have moved much. It was eerie, how she was standing. Stock still, eyes open but unseeing, glazed almost, like they were lost behind a fog. Her face was slack, but every now and then her lips moved, or her fingertips twitched.

“It very well may, but I cannot allow it to.” Thor answered, simply, turning back to look at Rocket. “Not until Thanos is dealt with, properly. Only when we have done that do I get to crumble.” He smiled, a weak, heartless thing, he knew. “If I die between now and then? Like we’ve discussed, what do I have to lose?”

Rocket snorted, but like Thor’s smile, there was no mirth in it. “That makes two of us, pal. If we can’t deal with that purple bastard, or I die trying? Groot’s gone, Nebula said the other Guardians went in the snap. Gamora... He killed Gamora.”

It had been only once or twice that Thor had heard that tone in Rocket’s voice since meeting him, but it was one that was becoming far more common. Defeat, heartbreak, upset. Not emotions that he felt all that distant from, himself, when it came down to it. His mother, his father, his hammer, his friends, his sister, his home, his people, his best friend, and his brother. Loss had an uncanny ability to bring with it a plethora of emotion, and too many of them now knew it intimately.

If Thor could be part of undoing that...

“He’s a bastard.” Thor agreed, reaching out to pat Rocket’s back. “And we will deal with him. For everyone he’s hurt.”

This time, Rocket’s smile seemed a little warmer, a little more real, and Thor returned it, but, just as quickly as it had come to him, it slipped away when Brunnhilde yelled.

“Thor. Thor, get over here, I’ve got him!”

It was the first sound she had made in over an hour, and now, with it, was coming the sound of calamity. Not thunder, no, that wouldn’t have set the hair on his arms on edge. The sound that was surrounding them, while the wind picked up, whipping around them in a maelstrom that forced the three of them closer sounded more like metal tearing and screaming voices in a breathless pitch.

Thor recognized it for what it was, as he braced Brunnhilde, hands on her shoulders, letting her lean back into him while he planted his feet, and focused on the maw that was opening in front of her outstretched hands. At his side, Rocket stood guard, back to their legs, clearly keeping an eye out. It was a damn good idea.

They were pulling Loki, body and soul, from Limbo. There was no telling what might try to escape from between the worlds on the heels of the God of Mischief.

“That hag put up a good fight – and I – I almost lost him – a few times.” The cloudiness in her eyes was clearing, little by little, while she spoke. Looking from her face, out along her arms, Thor noticed the way she was holding her hands. Curled, the fingers claws, like she was digging in and holding on with everything she had. “He stopped fighting – me though – came along... I’ve got him, Thor, I’ve got him...”

The joy in her voice was almost too much for Thor. The wind was howling around them, her hair lashing both of their faces, but it did Thor a favour in whipping away the tears that dared to well in his eyes while they waited.

While, suddenly, Thor was seeing a pair of hands he knew so well wrapped around Brunnhilde’s forearms in a clutch identical to hers. Hands, and then arms, more, and more, while she backed up, and Thor moved back with her, steadying her, unable to pull his eyes away. Not even when Rocket’s words, incredulous, reached him.

“Holy _fuck_.”

Abruptly, the wind died.

The tear in the universe closed.

And something in Thor lurched, somewhere between relief and disbelief.

Brunnhilde’s hands were still on his arms, steadying him, and the two of them were speaking to each other, clearly checking up, Loki’s tone sounded almost as though it was bordering on annoyance, though, considering Brunnhilde’s, that wasn’t directed at her. They were talking, and even if it was only a few short seconds, Thor felt like a year passed while he moved around from behind his friend, and towards the brother he’d thought lost for good, this time.

Loki’s eyes found him, in that movement. The transition from Limbo back to the realm of the living had to have been difficult on him, and it was obvious to Thor nearly immediately that Loki’s movements were a little sluggish, a little off, almost like he was moving through water. Perhaps there was a disparity between what it felt like to exist within the universe where Loki had been, and here, but that wasn’t something Thor was looking to discuss right now.

Brunnhilde had stepped to the side the instant Thor had come around her shoulder, and though he knew she and Rocket were still standing there, once his eyes had met Loki’s, there was no accounting for anyone else.

“I thought I’d lost you for good.”

The words had come out of his mouth without his permission, quiet and broken, but Thor wouldn’t have taken them back. Not for the world. Not when he could see Loki’s smile spreading across his face, beautiful and _real_ , while he spread his hands at his sides and answered.

“You haven’t. Not yet.”

It was easy, and soft, but the emotion in it, and the light in Loki’s eyes that made it all too obvious he was fighting emotion himself broke the tension that had been holding them in place.

Thor surged forward, pulling Loki into his arms and finding no resistance, Loki coming easily, _rushing_ into it himself, his hands finding Thor’s shoulders, and then his jaw. His hands were cool, but his neck, where Thor’s hands had gone after centuries of _knowing_ each other, was warm under the collar of his tunic.

And his lips, when he pressed up into Thor, and kissed him, were warmer.

For that moment, there was nothing else. Nothing but this; Loki, warm in his arms, solid and real, kissing him, holding on to him, tight, one hand at the back of his head, the other curled in the collar of his armour. Loki, _alive_ , again, despite everything, despite the very real chance that Thor had been losing his sanity, on top of everything he’d lost before.

The universe was in very real danger, of that Thor had no delusions. Thanos had exacted his will, and there was a price to be paid for that, and, there would be no mistake. Thor would make sure he paid it.

It would just be so much easier, now, with Loki back by his side.

The sound of Brunnhilde clearing her throat wasn’t something that Thor missed, but he indulged Loki a few seconds longer, before he was pulling away from his mouth, watching him blink open his eyes, catching the dazed happiness in them before Loki seemed to tune into what was happening.

No matter what he’d just been through, between what Thanos had done, grappling with Hela, and coming back to this realm, there was something Loki simply didn’t let slip away. The smirk was an indication of that, a mischievous light coming into his eyes while he moved closer to Thor, tucking in against his side before he looked over at Brunnhilde.

“I suppose this whole reunion isn’t quite the thanks you were expecting when you reached into the ether and brought me back?”

“Loki.” Thor’s warning had no heart, no backbone. He knew he should admonish him, but there was no way he could do that, now, when he’d _just_ gotten him back. Besides, Brunnhilde was shaking her head, eyes rolling in exasperation even while she smiled and moved forward.

“I expected it. Somewhat. I just thought, since Rocket isn’t used to your highnesses’... _affection_ , maybe I should interrupt. If that’s all right?”

Loki hummed, but he was moving away from Thor’s side. Unthinking, Thor gripped at the fabric of the shawl thrown around Loki’s shoulders, loosing it from him a little before his senses got the better of him, and he let go, letting Loki move into the embrace Brunnhilde was offering.

That, too, was unexpected. Brunnhilde hadn’t been much of a _toucher_ when Thor had met her, but, here, when she’d found her people again, and a family, she was growing. Loki himself had never been one for affection with anyone but himself and their mother, but here he was, hugging Brunnhilde and saying the words ‘thank you. I cannot thank you _enough_ for this’.

It was a day for miracles, it seemed.

“So, uh, it worked out. You two seem... happy.”

Rocket was standing between himself and the other two. Abruptly, Thor remembered that Rocket hadn’t been around them both before. He didn’t really have a frame of reference for how Loki and Thor interacted.. There were bigger things to worry about, Thor supposed, than the romantic antics of himself and Loki, but he wasn’t the only one who suddenly seemed _fully_ aware that Rocket was new to this.

Thor nodded, watching while Loki and Brunnhilde broke apart, Loki glancing from Thor to Rocket and back.

“I certainly am. And Loki... I can say for certain, he is, too. With this... It isn’t everything, but he can help us. He’ll help me. To stay focused, do what needs...” Thor frowned, looking at Loki’s neck. The shawl had fallen away even more, and behind the dark hair resting against his shoulders, Thor was sure he could see purples. Blues. Blacks. Bruising. A souvenir of how Loki had come to be in Hela’s company in the first place. “What needs to be done.”

“Uh huh. Right.” Rocket nodded, moving a bit closer, narrowing his eyes and tapping his chin like he was thinking about something. “So, on Asgard, does ‘ _brother_ ’ mean something it don’t everywhere else in the universe?”

“Right!” Brunnhilde broke into the conversation, but Thor was already smiling, glad for the distraction from the way Loki adjusted his clothing, covering his neck while he clearly gathered breath to answer Rocket.

“If you _must_ know, Thor and I--”

“--Why don’t we leave the complicated relationship discussion until _after_ we’ve all had something to eat, hm?” Brunnhilde interrupted again, looking to Thor, clearly desperate for back-up. “Back to Wakanda then?”

“Back to Wakanda.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed, glancing between the two of them as they began their hike back to the quinjet. “Are neither of you going to bother introducing me to the raccoon, or is the first thing I do upon return to the living going to be traumatizing someone I haven’t even properly met?”

Thor opened his mouth, but Rocket was quicker, speaking over him.

“Hey! Buddy, I know you just came back from the dead and all? But call me a raccoon again, and you’ll be heading back to where we just found you.”

“You know Mother would think it very _rude_ for me to inform a stranger about our very _brotherly_ relationship without being properly introduced.” Loki added to Thor in a theatrical whisper.

“Who said I wanted to know details?!”

Perhaps he would leave it to Loki and Rocket to acquaint themselves. It would be quite the trip back to Wakanda. They could use the entertainment.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This final chapter features art by [Andlatitude](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com)
> 
> Find her post [here](http://andlatitude.tumblr.com/post/179599206064/heres-my-art-for-slamncram-s-thorki-big).

To say that everyone had been as thrilled about his return to the living as Thor and Brunnhilde would have been a huge lie, the likes of which even Loki wouldn’t have been able to make believable. The flight back to Wakanda had been an interesting one, in which he and Rocket had become acquainted while Thor flew the jet, and Brunnhilde rested. He had talked for most of the flight with Rocket, sitting as close to Thor’s pilot’s chair as he could, and keeping an eye on Brunnhilde, who was laying on her back on one of the jet’s bunks. By the time they had landed back in Wakanda, Loki felt he and Rocket had potential to be fast friends, and he’d done what he’d known he needed to, if he ever made it back to this side of the veil.

Namely, he’d thanked Rocket for looking out for his brother while he’d been on his brainless, suicidal mission.

Thor had needed someone, in that moment, and Rocket had stepped up at a time when Thor had no one else available to him. That meant something to Loki. Being in Thor’s good graces, and falling on the right side of all of this mess meant that Loki needed to make sure he was making it known that he’d appreciated what Rocket had done.

He and Thor had done the same with Brunnhilde, on the walk to the quinjet. She had waved them off, put on her brave face, and said it was nothing, and she was just glad it had worked, and she didn’t need to worry about letting Thor down, _or_ watching him go mad talking to ghosts. Loki knew, though, and he suspected Thor did as well, the toll it had taken on her. Not just physically, but emotionally as well, to tap into the things she had, to reach back to abilities she was no doubt rusty with.. She had run from being a Valkyrie for so long, and had lost so deeply.

There was no doubt in Loki’s mind; if she had been able to do what she’d done with him with the lover she’d lost, she would have. Perhaps she’d tried, and failed, because she was unreachable, beyond the gates of Valhalla.

It had been a huge task to undertake, and they weren’t ungrateful. Loki would have to see to making sure that she was properly compensated for everything she had done today.

It would have to go on the list, though.

A list that was growing, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment.

For now, the Asgardians were welcome to stay in Wakanda. On that, Princess Shuri had been firm, and she had been quick to say that their ranks _included_ Loki. Stark had returned from, apparently, Titan, and with him he’d brought the Luphomoid who had been the sister to Gamora under Thanos’ thumb. Loki remembered her, and she him, and they had a mutual, quiet understanding that the other was there to help, and there to stay. Stark hadn’t been all that pleased about Loki being in Wakanda, and he’d made it very loudly, obnoxiously known that he didn’t entirely trust him.

Bruce had vouched for him, though. The insult in that, to Thor, was clear, but now wasn’t the time, or the place, to bring it up and argue about it. Loki would be the first to admit that Thor’s view of him was skewed, biased in a way that few of their friends’ opinions would be. Between Bruce and Brunnhilde, they had made a case for Loki, to Stark, Okoye, M’Baku, and, over video link, Rogers, Rhodes, and Romanoff.

Loki was here to help. Loki would be of use against Thanos, and in assisting with the Asgardians. Loki would be staying.

That conversation had been a long one, but, by the end of it, Loki thought he had a new appreciation for Bruce, and an admiration for the strength and tenacity of Princess Shuri. She had stepped up, in her brother’s absence, and was doing what was needed to keep the peace and keep their goals moving forward.

Those goals were moving forward, quickly, too. Stark had returned with a great deal of information about Titan, and Loki had added to it in his report that he had visited outposts and strongholds he’d known Thanos to use, and had found him nowhere. The program Shuri had designed with Bruce’s assistance was scanning the universe now to pinpoint Titan and the few other places Nebula had been able to tell them of. In the morning, they would be moving forward on a plan of action. They would be dealing with the Mad Titan, soon.

It was for that reason that Loki didn’t even attempt arguing, or deflecting when Thor said they needed their rest, and he was taking Loki to bed.

“They’re all a little nervous about me.” Loki remarked, stripping out of the robe he’d been given for after he’d been able to finally take off the clothing he’d crossed over in and bathe. That had felt wonderful, even if Thor had opted to give him space for it while he took those clothes to be cleaned. They were all he had, for now, and that would be fine. The problem was, now that he was clean, and the door to their room was closed, he could look in the large mirror mounted against the wall and survey the damage that had been left.

There wasn’t much. Loki wasn’t sure if that was because there simply wasn’t much to begin with, or because Hela was kinder than she’d ever been known to be. The bruising around his neck was something he knew he couldn’t hide from Thor, so he didn’t bother. The thick, unfocused lines of it pressed on either side, below his jaw, above his collarbone. Purples, blues, blacks and reds. It was ugly, sore when he pressed fingers against it, and hard to hide entirely even when he wasn’t wearing clothes. He’d known it was standing out, because it hadn’t only been Thor’s eyes that had glanced at his neck, even if Thor had been the only one to brush fingers over his skin.

That was it, really, though. Not much other bruising, only a few superficial cuts. Perhaps Hela had some kindness harboured in her black heart after all.

“They are. I can’t really blame them. Nor can you.”

Thor was sitting on the edge of the bed, giving Loki space, and time, and it was appreciated. As much as he wanted to turn and hide from his reflection in Thor’s arms, he needed to face this. He’d died, but he’d come back. This wouldn’t be and couldn’t be like coming to terms with his Jötunn parentage. This was something else, something unique, and he would face his reflection and be calm with it.

“No. New York was... an event.” Stepping up to the mirror, Loki touched his neck, gentle, eyes sliding to look at Thor in the reflection.

He was stripped down himself, naked and beautiful, and Loki’s heart ached. There had been such a real possibility that they would be apart for the rest of time. He would be trapped in Hel, and Thor would live for centuries longer before he went to Valhalla. Loki would never have held him again, never been able to look at him, look him over, and then reach out and touch him. The chance that they would have been apart for the rest of forever had scared him.

It still did, because Hela’s threat was present at the back of his mind, reminding him of the pressure he’d felt with her fingers around his wrist, holding him back, keeping him from Thor until she had her bargain. He’d been made to stay away from Thor so long, he’d given her what she needed.

He couldn’t stay away anymore. Turning around, he moved towards the bed, making no hesitations as he climbed over Thor, knees pressed into the mattress on either side of his hips while his arms wrapped around his shoulders. He didn’t need to hold on, Thor was pulling him in with hands on his hips, those palms sliding over his back to hold him close, but he wasn’t going to let go. Not now that they were together again.

“They’re nervous about us.”

This time, Thor laughed, soft, his lips pressing against Loki’s shoulder. “Well, they’ll have to get used to it, won’t they? There are bigger problems right now than the fact that you and I are fucking.”

“You and I are in love.”

The change in Thor was instant. He’d been relaxed, but he tensed, leaning out so he could see Loki’s face.

It was bold admission, giving in to sharing emotion, attachment, affection. Loki didn’t do it easily, and he knew Thor knew that. Thor had been an exception much of their lives, and Loki was a slave to his emotions, but for him to say something like that, unprompted, was rare.

“We are. I love you, Thor, more than words could say, and you _know_ I have a way with words.” Loki smiled, tried to make it light, while he brushed his fingers over Thor’s jaw, tracing the edges of his beard. “I don’t tell you that enough. Didn’t tell you that enough. We’ve been... through a lot, these last few years, and I know you’re waiting for me to get bored, stab you in the back, and unveil my next scheme. And I’m not saying there won’t be boredom, and there won’t be schemes. But the backstabbing... The betrayal...”

Loki shrugged, letting his fingers run down the length of Thor’s bare arms to cover the hands that were resting on his hips. “I’m sure mother would say that’s not how one treats the person they love. I’ve been given chances, but this one, right now? It’s the biggest. That means I do this the way you deserve. Because I _love_ you, Thor. I do.”

The cascade of emotion in Thor’s eyes was washing over him in a way Loki had been resisting for years. The artificial eye was damn good, because even it, in its foreign hue, strange in Thor’s face, was piercing through to Loki’s heart, making sure he knew his words were getting through.

“I love you, Loki. I feel like I’ve said that... a thousand times - “

“- Rescuing me from Limbo said it a million more.” Loki pointed out, grinning when Thor huffed a quiet, helpless laugh.

“I suppose it did. And I will take your words for what they are, brother. The truth.” His hands shifted, sliding out from under Loki’s, and he laced their fingers together, raising both between the two of them so he could press his lips against the knuckles of his fingers. “You were holding my hands, and I didn’t feel you cross your fingers, not once.”

“You thought I was lying?”

The look Thor gave him said a thousand words. The hurt and betrayal that Loki had levelled on Thor over the past few years had been considerable, and his ability to lie could get away from him. Even now, when he was so newly returned to life, there was a chance that his old habits had not died so hard.

Part of growing and changing meant that he needed to accept that Thor had a reason to give him that look.

It didn’t stop him from shaking his head, pulling a hand free to cup Thor’s jaw, looking him over. “I didn’t lie. The fact that you would think _those_ words could be, after everything we just went through - “

The laugh that Thor interrupted him with was bright, the kind that Loki had been used to back when they hadn’t grown a rift between them yet. When they were still looking forward to Thor’s coronation and would sneak in from the sparring fields to one of their chambers, and spend the afternoon wrapped up in each other, Loki hoarding Thor away from his friends. It instantly recalled love and warmth, and Loki was helpless to act against it, trying so desperately to hold on to his indignation while Thor pulled him in close and tight.

“Loki,” he began, still smiling, bright and alive, twisting so he could toss Loki down on the mattress. _That_ was something that simply hadn’t changed, and even if Loki tried his best to look annoyed with the way he was being manhandled, it wasn’t stopping him from reaching for Thor as he climbed over him. “It was a joke. You’re not the only one who can tell them. Perhaps it was cruel, though...”

Thor pressed down against him, covering him with his body, and Loki closed his eyes. Thor didn’t need a response, didn’t need to know that _yes,_ Loki thought his joke was a little cruel. They were laying together, in bed, skin to skin, Thor so warm everywhere it touched him that Loki thought he might melt happily into nothing.

He’d been dead.

The reality of that was still holding back on him, he was fairly sure. There had been so many times before where he could have died, should have died, and hadn’t. And now that he had, because he had chosen to sacrifice himself to protect Thor, the truth of it was hard to handle. It wasn’t going to get any easier.

Not for him, and not for Thor, either.

The truth of that was stark, because even while Thor laid down against him, he was tipping Loki’s chin back, and running his fingers over his neck, light and gentle, tracing the ugly lines of the bruises Loki hoped, in time, would fade.

“I’m here.”

“And you very nearly weren’t. For a long time, there, you just _weren’t_ , Loki.” Thor’s fingers moved up, brushing through his hair, right to the damp ends, fanning them across the pillow. “Even before the _Statesman_. I’d thought you dead for years. And then you truly, _truly_ died in front of me, and each of the days that passed before we brought you back felt raw. I don’t want to go through that again.”

“So, you won’t. There’s a plan, now. There are more of us. And he will be unguarded, unprepared. He’s done what he wanted, so, even if I’m not _thrilled_ about the idea of going after him so soon after he killed me, I’ll do-”

Thor cut him off, lips pressing against his own, urgent and needy, and Loki didn’t try to pull away or continue.

There would be time to talk about Thanos and what needed to be done, later, when it wasn’t the two of them.

Right now, Loki wanted the same as Thor. He wanted _them_ , and he wanted to forget how close they had come to never having this again. How close he had been to losing the feeling of Thor kissing him hungrily, like he wanted to devour him, pulling little whimpers from Loki when his tongue traced the curve of his lip, and his teeth tugged, gentle but present. There. Real.

Only hours ago they could have been robbed of this.

That thought, while Thor ran his palms down Loki’s body, almost made him want to weep. He’d spent so many years telling himself that he wouldn’t miss Thor, didn’t miss Thor, and could live without feeling the weight of his love and adoration pressing over every inch of him. He’d hid in Odin’s form on Asgard and pretended to himself that he felt fulfilled and happy, but none of it compared to this.

Not a single second of it compared to the way it felt when Thor pressed fingers inside him, slow, gentle and loving, mouth on his neck leaving a trail of hot kisses that made it hard to imagine he wasn’t having his bruises healed. Not a single second of it could outdo the way he felt while Thor took his time preparing him, and murmured love against his skin, lips curved in a smile at the way Loki gasped his name, and the way he gripped his shoulders, short, blunt nails digging in.

Before, they had rarely taken things this slowly. They were taken up in their lust and their youth and the ease of their royal existence, and true _lovemaking_ had been a rare occurrence.

It did not mean that Loki hadn’t adored every second of it, just as much as he’d loved when Thor had let him push him down to be ridden, hard and quick.

The last time they’d done this had been their first time, again, on the _Statesman_. There had been an edge to that which had spoken of the years apart, the broken trust so recently healed, but it had been _good_.

It still could not hold a candle to the way this felt.

This was not simply coming back together after breaking apart. This was coming back together after defying the odds, spitting in the face of those who would have kept them apart. This was love, and sex, and emotion, and when Thor pushed inside him, slow, careful, his forehead against Loki’s so he could watch his eyes as he did, Loki had to speak truth, again.

“I love you, Thor. Norns, I love you so – so much.”

Thor’s eyes closed, his hips shifting forward, fast, making Loki gasp, eyes rolling back in pleasure. He’d barely let that wave pass before he was rocking back and into him again, languid, building up to a rhythm that already had Loki feeling lost.

“Don’t leave me again.”

Loki nodded, slight, nose bumping Thor’s. “I won’t.”

“Stay with me.”

His legs tightened around Thor’s waist, heels driving him deeper, and Loki whimpered. “I will.”

Lifting his head, he caught Thor’s lips in a deep kiss, pouring into it everything he was feeling. His fingers buried in the short, uneven hair at the back of his head, pulling him in, like they couldn’t get close enough, even while Thor kissed him back, even while his cock was inside Loki, pulling soft sounds from him while he kissed Thor’s lips, again and again.

They had nearly lost each other, for real, forever. Finally, Loki understood everything Thor had felt, every time he’d had to watch him ‘die’. Falling off the Bifrost. Stabbed through on a foreign planet. Strangled by a madman to save his life. Every time, Thor had been left alone with that same insurmountable _horror_.

Loki wouldn’t do that to him again. He’d found his peace, and it wasn’t in shunning Thor, and pretending he was happy when he wasn’t.

It was with Thor, at his side, fighting together, loving him, being the other half of his coin that they had always been meant to be.

It was an understanding he’d been afraid of for years, but there was no reason to be afraid of it now.

There was no reason to fight it, any longer.

It was easier to give in. To what he wanted, what he needed, and to Thor.

And in that moment, Thor was both what he wanted and needed. He was drowning in pleasure, physical and emotional. Thor’s hand was on his hip, holding him steady, his cock burying deep inside him on every thrust, his eyes on Loki. Watching him, while Loki laced their other fingers together, squeezing hard. Loki could feel the weight of his gaze, and the weight of all that love he’d run from for years, pressing down on him while he arched his back, Thor’s name the only word his tongue knew well, the only coherent word coming out of his mouth when bliss hit him, tossing him into an abyss much sweeter than Limbo.

And one that he came back from much faster, body still shaking, sensitive, little moans barely silenced before he was urging Thor on, fingers of one hand entwined, the other gripping his hair, watching his face while he begged, “let me feel you, brother.”

And when Thor gave in, let go, coming hot inside him, Loki could have sworn he got lost again, himself. Watching Thor’s face, hearing the desperation, the pleasure in his voice. Pulling him into his arms and letting Thor bury his face in his neck while he whimpered and rode out his orgasm inside Loki, he was sure if his body hadn’t been spent, he would have come again.

How long they laid like that, messy, sticky, hot, Loki wasn’t sure, and he didn’t truly care. Thor was heavy and warm on top of him, sated and at peace. His own skin was buzzing, sensitive everywhere, his body singing like it had never known such pleasure. In spite of everything the last few days, they were content, blissful, even, and, most important, they were _together_.

They couldn’t have stayed like that forever, though, and Loki had known it, even before Thor was shifting on top of him, pulling out, the two of them laughing quietly at the sounds they both made at the feeling, and the way their skin was stuck together.

“Perhaps you’d like to join me for another bath?” Loki asked, cheeky. Even so, his gaze was soft while he watched Thor press a kiss to his shoulder, then his bicep.

“I don’t think I have much choice in the matter. We’ve made quite a mess.” Thor grinned up at him, before leaning down to press another kiss to his forearm. Loki smiled, reaching down to grasp Thor’s other hand, fully intending to press a kiss to his palm, but that hand was pulled from his, moving over to the arm that Thor had been peppering such sweet kisses against.

“What’s this?”

“What’s what?” Loki asked, lifting his head, and then his arm, frowning while he tried to work out what Thor was asking about. They had not been even close to rough, just now, so Loki couldn’t imagine he was scratched in any way, but maybe he’d missed something.

It wasn’t a scratch, though.

It was a rune, barely noticeable unless you looked at it in the right light. Right now, in the warm light of the lamps on either side of their bed, Loki could see what Thor had seen, clear as day.

_Hagalaz_. Two bars connecting two posts. Not necessarily _Hela’s_ , but the meaning of it, the _look_ of it, certainly brought her to mind.

“I... made one more deal with her.” Thor looked over at Loki sharply. “In order for her to let me leave.”

“Loki...”

It was disappointed, or warning. Rather, the tone in Thor’s voice sounded almost frightened, and it was enough to make Loki shift, pulling up until they were sitting in front of each other with his forearm between them, the rune almost a mockery on his skin, just below his wrist. Just at the spot where she’d been gripping him.

“It’s not bad. The jist of it is, we deal with Thanos, and we’re square.” Loki looked across at Thor, meeting his eyes. “You fall, and we fail to deal with Thanos and undo what he’s done?”

Thor didn’t need Loki to finish his explanation. “You go to Hel.”

Loki nodded. “Precisely.”

It wasn’t the best thing to discuss after what they’d just done. If Loki had his way, they never would have discussed it. It was a foregone conclusion, one that Loki was even more sure of, after Thor had just taken him the way he had. Thanos _would_ be dealt with, and both of them would survive. There would be no more sacrifice. They would protect each other, but neither would let the other fall in order to keep them alive.

They would fight side by side forever, as Thor had always thought they would.

“Well. It’s not ideal.” Thor said, running his fingers over the rune one more time before he turned Loki’s arm over in his grasp. He used it to pull him forward, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “We’re a mess. Come on. Let’s get ourselves cleaned up, however long that takes.”

It didn’t seem like Thor was trying, at all, to hide the smile on his face, and, as they got up from the bed, Loki reached out for his hand.

“I’m impressed. And flattered. I thought for a moment that might ruin the mood.”

Thor led him into the attached bathroom that Loki had only left an hour before. “It would have, but I’m feeling rather confident, brother.” Closing the door, he pulled Loki in close, neither of them mindful of the mess on their skin as he did, nor when Loki pulled him into a slow, sweet kiss. Perhaps it was inappropriate. Considering Hela had intended the deal to be something of a blow, a terrifying bargaining chip, maybe it was even disrespectful.

They had never _really_ been concerned with all that, though.

“Let’s clean up.” Thor said, quietly, when they broke apart again. “In the morning, we begin fulfilling your promise to our sister, and righting the wrongs Thanos has committed.”

It was odd, all things considered, the way things had gone in the last few days. He had died, travelled through Limbo, made a deal with the Goddess of Death, and come back to life, conditional on things he could not be wholly responsible for.

But, quite a while later, when they climbed back into their bed, doubly satisfied and with Thor still sporting the red imprint of Loki’s bite on his shoulder, Loki had to admit he felt at ease.

Despite everything, including the rune on his wrist, falling asleep beside Thor, tucked under his arm, he was assured of their immortality once again.

At least, for now.

                                                    


End file.
